Senate HELP Ranking Member Cassidy Issues Report Accusing Biden Administration of “Aiding Political Backers at the Expense of American Workers”
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Ranking Member Bill Cassidy (R-LA) released a report that accuses the Biden Administration of weaponizing its “executive authority over U.S. labor and employment policy to strip workers of opportunity, flexibility, pay, and protection against discrimination, in a bid to court the political backing of large labor unions.”
In the report, Cassidy cites several examples of this “weaponization,” including: (1) the Department of Labor’s (DOL) SWACCA-supported final independent contractor rule, which he says “dismantles the gig economy and jeopardizes the ability of 27 million Americans to work as independent contractors”; (2) SWACCA-supported Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council regulations regarding the use of project labor agreements and DOL’s SWACCA-supported rule modernizing Davis-Bacon prevailing wage, which he says are meant to “ensure that government dollars easily flow to contractors that hire union labor, follow union work rules, and pay into union defined benefit and pension plans; (3) the National Labor Relations Board’s final joint employer rule, which he says “threatens the viability of the franchise model that employs over 9 million Americans”; (4) DOL’s new “Worker Walkaround Rule,” which he says “allows outside union officials to inject themselves into workplaces that have not voted to be represented by the union”; (5) the Office of Labor-Management Standards’ rescission of financial disclosure on union-related trusts, which he says “will result in unchecked union corruption”; (6) the National Labor Relations Board’s recent decision in Cemex Construction, that Cassidy says “sacrificed an employee’s choice to unionize—or not—for rules that facilitate unionization”; (7) DOL’s final overtime rule, which he says “dramatically increases the overtime threshold by 65%”; and (8) DOL’s new H-2A regulations, which he says “promotes unionization of temporary foreign workers by allowing union officials access to the workplace and to employer-sponsored housing.”
The full report is available here.
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