Yesterday Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the Accountable Capitalism Act, a plan to reduce income inequality while still operating within a capitalist framework. The goal is to make large companies responsive not only to their shareholders, but also to their employees. Under the bill, corporations with more than one billion dollars in annual revenue would be required to procure a federal corporate charter. The charter, in turn, dictates that directors must account for the interests of “all major corporate stakeholders” including employees in corporate decision-making. Employees would also elect at least forty percent of the corporation’s directors, and at least seventy-five percent of a corporation’s directors would be needed to approve any political spending.
In June, Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to fill Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat on the Supreme Court, dissented from a D.C. Circuit decision finding that a Long Island company with unionized workers had violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by establishing a spin-off company run by the executive’s daughters that hired non-union workers. The National Labor Relations Board had found that the new company was the “alter ego” of the original company and was required under the NLRA to bargain in good faith with the union. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the NLRB’s decision. Kavanaugh’s dissent was largely based on the fact that the new company was operated by the owner’s daughters, not the owner himself. Dave Jamieson explains that Kavanaugh’s dissenting opinion follows a pattern of cases in which Kavanaugh has sided with corporations over workers, occasionally as the only dissenter.
Venture capitalist and self-described “zillionaire” Nick Hanauer writes for Politico that Democrats must move to the left if they want to align themselves with the economic interests of America’s center. Hanauer contends that the “center” some Democrats currently talk about balances the interests of the top 2% against the interests of the rest of the country, resulting in a skewed view of attainable policy goals. He explains that issues that Democrats have traditionally viewed as “far left,” such as raising the minimum wage to $15, already have majority support and should thus be viewed as centrist. Hanauer says that Democrats made a mistake when they claimed power in 1992 and failed to rewrite labor laws, instead dismissing the labor movement as a “special interest group” and letting Wall Street dictate the Democratic agenda. He argues that Democrats repeated their mistake in the early Obama years, when they again had unified government but failed to pass meaningful labor law reform.
The New York Times profiled Muriel Pénicaud, the French labor minister charged by President Emmanuel Macron with overhauling the country’s notoriously complex Code du Travail. Pénicaud’s goal is to align the country’s labor policies with the Nordic-style “flexible security” model, which gives companies more power to hire and fire workers but provides workers substantial training and support to transition to new employment opportunities. Pénicaud won concessions after a 300-hour negotiation with major unions and business groups. She has advocated, for instance, for a firm-level rather than industry-wide collective bargaining model, just as labor advocates in countries with firm-level bargaining like the United States have set their sights on sectoral bargaining. Pénicaud has faced criticism for seeking to reduce the economic security of French workers while being the richest member of Macron’s cabinet.
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May 9
Philadelphia City Council unanimously passes the POWER Act; thousands of federal worker layoffs at the Department of Interior expected; the University of Oregon student workers union reach a tentative agreement, ending 10-day strike
May 8
Court upholds DOL farmworker protections; Fifth Circuit rejects Amazon appeal; NJTransit navigates negotiations and potential strike.
May 7
U.S. Department of Labor announces termination of mental health and child care benefits for its employees; SEIU pursues challenge of NLRB's 2020 joint employer rule in the D.C. Circuit; Columbia University lays off 180 researchers
May 6
HHS canceled a scheduled bargaining session with the FDA's largest workers union; members of 1199SEIU voted out longtime union president George Gresham in rare leadership upset.
May 5
Unemployment rates for Black women go up under Trump; NLRB argues Amazon lacks standing to challenge captive audience meeting rule; Teamsters use Wilcox's reinstatement orders to argue against injunction.
May 4
In today’s news and commentary, DOL pauses the 2024 gig worker rule, a coalition of unions, cities, and nonprofits sues to stop DOGE, and the Chicago Teachers Union reaches a remarkable deal. On May 1, the Department of Labor announced it would pause enforcement of the Biden Administration’s independent contractor classification rule. Under the January […]