PUTTING WORKERS FIRST?

Who are the Trump Administration & Congress (really) fighting for?
"Every decision . . . will be made to benefit American workers."
- President Trump, Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 2017
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Week 152
Dec 16, 2019

Trump’s NLRB overturns Obama regulation that required continued dues collection during collective bargaining even if the contract has expired.

  • The NLRB will now allow employers to stop collecting and remitting union dues once a collective bargaining agreement has expired.
  • Without the automatic collection of dues from a workers paycheck, the dues process can become complex for workers and potentially costly to them in the long run.
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NLRB, Unions
Week 151
Dec 13, 2019

Trump’s NLRB finalizes rule to slow down union election process.

  • In 2014, the Board issued a regulation that expedited parts of the union election process. The new rule delays several deadlines that will allow employers more time to pressure workers into voting against unionizing.
  • The Board has given employers more time to try to defeat unionization using all sorts of high-pressure and procedural tactics.
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NLRB, Unions
Dec 12, 2019

DOL finalizes the rule amending the definitions of “regular rate” for purposes of computing overtime pay under the FLSA.

  • DOL finalized the regulation that would allow call back pay to be included in the calculation of the regular rate, for purposes of calculating overtime pay, only if it is prearranged. 
  • By deleting the references to the frequency of call back payments and only allowing those payment to be included in the regular rate of pay, DOL has ignored the reality of low wage workers  who will accommodate frequent and last-minute scheduling changes without “prearrangement” and therefore will be paid less.
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DOL, Overtime, Wage and Hour
Dec 12, 2019

Trump’s NLRB approves a deal relieving McDonald’s Corporation of any liability for the legal violations of its franchisees that were allegedly directed by the Corporation.

  • The NLRB vacated a 2018 decision that rejected a settlement of charges filed against fast-food giant McDonald's. The NLRB rejected any notion of joint employer liability in this case.
  • The Trump Administration continues to scale back the joint employer doctrine, helping large corporations escape liability.
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Joint Employer, NLRB
Week 150
Dec 05, 2019

Immigration enforcement in the workplace has quadrupled under the Trump administration.

  • In the past two years, ICE investigators have initiated four times the number of immigration workplace investigations; up to 6812 cases in 2019 compared to 1701 in 2016. The agency has been so busy raiding workplaces that there has been a decrease in other probes that the agency is responsible for like gang and financial crimes.
  • In spite of the increased actions against workers, there hasn't been any visibly increased use of enforcement actions against employers.
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Immigrant Workers, Immigration
Dec 03, 2019

Trump’s NLRB considering altering supervisor test in order to disqualify more workers from union eligibility.

  • After nursing home workers in Pennsylvania were granted the right to vote on joining their local union, the NLRB expressed concern about the supervisor test that allows workers like these to be union eligible. In order to be categorized as a supervisor under the NLRA, workers must have the authority to fire, hire, or discipline subordinate employees.
  • If the NLRB changes the standards for the supervisor test, fewer workers will be eligible for unionization, weakening their ability to band together to have a voice on the job.
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NLRB, Unions
Week 148
Nov 22, 2019

Trump’s DOL attempts to dodge discrimination law by no longer collecting pay data information from federal employers.

  • The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced that it will no longer collect EEO-1 pay data information - demographic data that is often used to identify discrimination - from federal employers.
  • This is yet another example of how Trump's DOL continues to protect employers and not employees. Refusing to collect EEOC-1 data is an underhanded method of allowing federal employers to skirt pay discrimination laws.
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DOL, Federal Contracting, OFCCP
Nov 20, 2019

DOL withdraws the proposal that would have increased injury to teens working in nursing homes.

  • DOL had proposed to roll back regulations that would have prevented 16- and 17-year-olds working in nursing homes and hospitals from operating power-driven patient lifts without supervision. The DOL provided little evidence or risk analysis to justify the new rule—and what it did provide turned out to be based on an inaccurate reading of what advocates discovered was a seven-year-old, 22-respondent Survey Monkey poll of vocational programs in Massachusetts.
  • Allowing 16- and 17-year-old nursing assistants to operate mechanical lifts without adult assistance would have led to more instances of painful and potentially debilitating injuries to young nursing home workers, who lack sufficient experience and training to handle the challenging task of lifting and moving residents with complex physical and mental disabilities.  
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DOL, Health and Safety, Youth Workers
Week 146
Nov 06, 2019

DOL misused appropriated funding to back an employer-friendly apprenticeship program.

  • After testifying before Congress that existing funding would not be used to finance the Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP), a new apprenticeship program championed by the White House, DOL has admitted that it did, in fact, use $1.1 million in funds appropriated for another program to fund IRAP.
  • IRAP is a controversial program because it allows employers and industries to set standards which were previously set by DOL. It will lack the wage, safety, and civil rights protections to which traditional recognized apprenticeship programs must adhere.
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Apprenticeship, DOL
Nov 04, 2019

DOL proposes to expand employers use of the “economically advantageous” fluctuating workweek method of computing overtime

  • The proposed Rule would make it easier for employers to use the FWW method and pay overtime premium pay at only half-time, instead of the usual time-and-a-half pay.  It would revise the current regulation for computing overtime compensation for salaried nonexempt employees who work hours that vary each week to allow payments in addition to the fixed salary to be used with the fluctuating workweek method of compensation.
  • This broadening of the exception to overtime premium pay undermines the purposes of the overtime provisions in the Act, which are to prevent the overwork of America’s workers, and to spread employment to others who need additional hours and result in more workers making only ½ times the regular rate for overtime hours instead of 1 ½ times that rate
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DOL, Overtime, Wage and Hour
Week 145
Oct 31, 2019

President Trump rescinds an Executive Order that protected federal contract workers when a new contractor is hired to continue the same work they are doing.

  • Previously, successor contractors had to give current qualified federal contract employees the right of first refusal on position under a new contract before the employer could hire another worker to fill it. That protection no longer exists.
  • Federal contract workers, especially those who work on long-term tasks or projects, have dramatically decreased job security and are more vulnerable to unemployment.
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DOL, Federal Contracting
Week 142
Oct 07, 2019

Trump’s DOL proposes a rule that would allow employers to assign tipped workers virtually unlimited amounts on non-tip-generating work, all while paying as little as only $2.13 per hour.

  • The proposed rule will overturn the longstanding 80/20 rule, which requires employers to pay workers the full minimum wage for any side work that exceeds twenty percent of their time.
  • The proposed rule will legally allow employers to take advantage of their staff by paying them the meager $2.13 tipped wage for duties that do not produce tips.
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DOL, Tipped Workers
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