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 141
Oct 03, 2019

Trump’s DOL finalizes a rule that will vastly expand the circumstances under which states can mandate that unemployment insurance applicants submit to mandatory drug tests.

  • The new rule applies an extremely expansive view of the narrow law that Congress passed allowing states to drug test UI applicants only if they lost their prior job due to drug use or if they are only applying for jobs in occupations that regularly test for drugs. This new regulation would allow states to define the latter pretty much any way they see fit.
  • This rule not only raises substantial concerns under the Fourth Amendment, and is a costly solution in search of a problem, but it stigmatizes unemployed workers by the mere use of drug testing.
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DOL, drug testing, Unemployment Insurance
Week 140
Sep 26, 2019

Senate confirms Eugene Scalia as next Labor Secretary.

  • In a straight party line vote of 53-to-44, the Senate confirmed corporate lawyer, Eugene Scalia, as the next Secretary of Labor.
  • Scalia's anti-worker resume demonstrates that the corporate business community will continue to have DOL at their beck and call.
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DOL, Nominations
Sep 24, 2019

The Trump Administration finalizes an overtime rule that raises the salary threshold for overtime coverage to $35,308 per year.

  • The new rule expands overtime coverage for employees who make less than $35, 308 per year, but that falls substantially short of the $51,064 that workers would get under the Obama Administration's threshold. And unlike the Obama DOL proposal, the threshold isn't indexed so it will lose value year after year.
  • Analysis from the Economic Policy Institute demonstrates that well over half of the workers who would have gotten new or strengthened overtime protections under the 2016 rule are not covered by the new rule.
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DOL, Overtime
Week 139
Sep 20, 2019

Trump’s NLRB proposes a rule that would strip some teaching staff of their union rights.

  • The proposed NLRB rule will reverse a 2016 rule that gives teaching and research assistants at private universities the right to unionize.
  • Without unionization, student faculty will not have a collective voice to fight for protections against discrimination, sexual harassment, and low wages.
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Education, NLRB, Unions
Sep 17, 2019

USDA finalizes swine inspection rule that jeopardizes worker and consumer safety.

  • Trump's USDA claims to be "modernizing" swine slaughter plants with the implementation of a new rule that increases line speeds, but in reality, the agency is endangering consumers, workers and the animals being slaughtered.
  • This rule will lead to an increase in packinghouse worker injuries. It is the first time in history that factory line speed limits have been removed from slaughterhouses. The rule also reduces the number of government plant inspectors by 40% and allows companies to create their own food safety testing programs.
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Health and Safety, USDA
Sep 17, 2019

Trump Administration proposes rules that could cause federal employees to face more disciplinary actions.

  • The Office of Personnel Management has proposed yet another set of rules that will reduce employee protections for federal workers.
  • If enacted these new rules could reduce, and in some cases eliminate current practices that allow employees to improve performance after disciplinary action. For example, by limiting the use of performance improvement plans and capping the amount of time an employee is allowed to respond to disciplinary actions.
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Federal Workforce, OPM
Week 138
Sep 12, 2019

The EEOC declines to continue to collect pay data from employers that aids in identifying where there is a gap in wages that harms women and others in protected classes such as people of color.

  • In ending this pay data collection, the EEOC loses an important tool in identifying pay discrimination based on membership in a protected class.
  • Without information broken down into demographic categories like ethnicity, sex, and race, employees may lose legal protection against workplace discrimination due to a lack of evidentiary data.
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EEOC, Equal Opportunity
Sep 10, 2019

The NLRB makes it easier for an employer to alter the terms of a contract without the permission of the workers’ union.

  • In another blow to worker power, the NLRB just issued a ruling that will allow employers to alter union contracts without the union's authorization or even knowledge in some cases.
  • Previously, employers had to have "clear and unmistakable"consent from union members to make a contract change. This new ruling will legally allow employers to leave union workers out of certain contract negotiations or changes.
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NLRB, Unions
Sep 10, 2019

DOL states that employers cannot delay FMLA leave until after worker takes other leave, even if they have a union contract allowing that.

  • DOL's opinion letter will make it harder for workers who have negotiated contracts to control which leave is taken first.
  • This change will make it harder for workers to take the leave previously allowed by law, even if they have a union contract.
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DOL, FMLA
Sep 09, 2019

Trump’s NLRB rejects a petition by the International Association of Machinists to become the bargaining representative of flight line employees.

  • The NLRB ruled that the group of 178 mechanics couldn't organize apart from the broader workforce.
  • The NLRB has made it more difficult to organize even when a subset of workers has distinct interests, diluting the power of workers and their unions.
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NLRB, Unions
Week 136
Aug 29, 2019

Trump’s NLRB rules that misclassifying workers does not violate federal labor law.

  • The NLRB continues to attack worker protections with its latest ruling in favor of an employer's right to misclassify a worker as an independent contractor
  • This ruling stakes a claim that misclassification is not an unfair labor practice, and complicates the enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act
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Misclassification, NLRB
Aug 28, 2019

Trump Administration rolls out new immigration policy that complicates the visa application process for certain groups of military and government-employee parents.

  • The policy update will no longer allow children of certain U.S. military service members or government employees to receive automatic citizenship.
  • This change to the citizenship process could affect varying groups of military or government employees. For example, parents who have adopted children while serving abroad or parents who are U.S. citizens, but have never lived in the country.
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Federal Workforce, Immigration
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