Monday morning musings for workplace watchers
Walsh’s Moment | Wrinkle in OSHA Virus Rule | Biden’s Climate Push
Ben Penn: Marty Walsh’s Senate confirmation hearing Thursday will offer the first glimpses of how the two-term Boston mayor would run the U.S. Labor Department as secretary, a pivotal moment for a newcomer to the federal labor and employment landscape.
The U.S. Senate is unfamiliar territory for the former Boston building trades leader. Even some of Walsh’s supporters in Beantown say he isn’t a masterful orator. Rather, he has a reputation for connecting with constituents in intimate settings and for getting results in the closed-door meetings where the real action takes place.
Walsh will need to offer policy assurances to Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, but without over-committing himself or suffering any serious stumbles. Republicans are likely to press him about some legal and ethical questions during his mayoralty—including federal extortion charges against a pair of his aides—and they could try to paint him as a union shill.
But with Democrats holding an edge in the divided Senate, Walsh is likely to advance to the floor and be confirmed. His inexperience in federal workplace law and regulations could be an advantage, as he lacks a DOL-specific record for senators to scrutinize.
Walsh has held 14 calls with senators, with more booked for early this week, according to a source involved in his planning. As he readies for his Senate moment, another wave of Biden appointees is slated to arrive at DOL on Monday, signifying that further workplace policy and regulatory changes are in store.
After dozens of seasoned labor hands were installed at DOL on Inauguration Day, the latest hires likely will bolster the Employment and Training Administration, Wage and Hour Division, Solicitor of Labor’s office, and other units essential for pandemic economic recovery and reversing course on the Trump administration’s agenda.
New political staff are needed to revise Trump-era rulemakings, such as on independent contractor status, and to pivot litigation stances on pending lawsuits against Trump regulations, such as on joint employment liability and religious exemptions to bias standards.
The Biden White House has yet to nominate a single sub-Cabinet leader for DOL, so temporary political hires and their deputies and advisers will call the early shots.
One new hire to watch is Suzi LeVine, who transitions this week from serving as Washington state’s workforce chief to interim head of DOL’s Employment and Training Administration, as we reported Thursday. She’ll be joined by new chief of staff Ana Hageage, a returning Obama-era ETA adviser.
They’ll enter ETA with a list of urgent priorities, including tough decisions on how to carry out Biden’s directive for DOL to consider guidance clarifying that workers have a right to remain on unemployment insurance if they refuse unsafe job offers.
Read More: Labor Nominee’s Brushes With Scandal Loom Before Confirmation
Bruce Rolfsen: President
Millions of state and local government workers wouldn’t be covered by a federal Covid-19 workplace safety rule unless Congress takes action.
The under-the-radar issue could soon take on greater importance, as Biden has ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to decide if an emergency temporary standard is needed and, if the answer is “yes,” to enact a rule by March 15.
However, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 specifically exempts state and local government workers from federal OSHA’s jurisdiction unless the state has established its own federally approved worker safety agency.
Local and state public-sector workers in 24 states don’t have that federal protection. That means in Texas, about 1.7 million workers wouldn’t be covered by an OSHA emergency rule, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In other states where the exemption applies, the numbers are: Florida, 968,000; Ohio, 650,000; Pennsylvania, 586,000; and Massachusetts, 337,000.
States that already extend OSHA protections to public-sector employees include California, New York, Illinois, Tennessee, Arizona, and Michigan.
The Biden administration wants Congress to approve an exemption to the 1970 law that would get all state and local government workers covered by an OSHA emergency rule, but the politics of the president’s stimulus push are complicated.
The measure was expected to be part of Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief act, which Democrats are poised to advance using a partisan budget tool, but 10 GOP senators are calling for talks on a $600 billion alternative plan.
Worker advocates have long criticized that state and local government employees are left out of OSHA coverage, and are calling for Congress to act.
“Covid doesn’t pick and choose which professions to target, so these new standards should extend to all workplaces across the country, including those who currently don’t have any OSHA protections at all,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten told Bloomberg Law in an email.
A representative of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said it’s “critically important that the federal law ensure the standard is applied to all public service workers.”
Read More: GOP Senators Offer $600 Billion Stimulus Compromise to Biden
Ian Kullgren: Biden is on a mission to prove that unions are central to his administration’s climate plan. It’s a strategy motivated in no small part by a desire to lock down the union vote for Democrats in future elections.
The president’s framing of the issue spoke volumes: “Today is ‘Climate Day’ at the White House, which means that today is ‘Jobs Day’ at the White House,” Biden said last week as he rolled out an executive order emphasizing creation of “green” union jobs.
During the campaign, former President
The order’s fine print has even more union goodies. It says the labor secretary will join a newly established “National Climate Task Force” to create “well-paying union jobs and economic growth” as part of the administration’s broader climate policy.
It emphasizes that the labor secretary must enforce the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires the use of local prevailing wages on public works projects. The order’s procurement portion specifically highlights prevailing wages—an obvious nod to the building trades—and instructs DOL to update Davis-Bacon requirements.
While the building trades seemed to be taking a wait-and-see approach, the AFL-CIO called Biden’s order a “tremendous opportunity” to create jobs.
“The clean-energy economy must be built on a foundation of family-supporting union jobs, and...[ the] order makes clear that President Biden is committed to that vision,” AFL-CIO President
The order also calls for creation of union manufacturing jobs in construction of zero-emission vehicles, a provision aimed at the United Auto Workers, who helped Biden win Michigan.
Auto-sector unions shouldn’t get too excited, though. Bloomberg News colleagues smartly pointed out that union-made electric vehicles barely exist in the U.S.
Read More: New Top NLRB Lawyer Kills Predecessor’s Union Neutrality Case
—With assistance from Paige Smith
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