Zachary Boullt is a student at Harvard Law School.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett has been confirmed to the Supreme Court. You can read OnLabor’s discussion of her history on workers’ issues on the Seventh Circuit here. You can read OnLabor’s discussion of her textualism as it relates to her Kleber decision here.
Bloomberg Law has received more information on the whistleblower complaint regarding the dispute between Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia and Janet Herold, the Department of Labor’s top West Coast litigator. Herold alleged in August that Scalia had ordered her transfer to a non-legal position in Chicago due to her wage-and-hour and worker misclassification work. New information shows that Trump’s Department of Labor has been heavily scrutinizing and sometimes revising her legal pleadings and filings to soften up the language or use a new legal test that the Department of Labor announced this year. In addition to the alleged Trump administration DOL dissatisfaction with her litigation strategy, new information also shows that Herold internally criticized the DOL’s proposed new rule regarding the classification of independent contractors as pro-business.
A union protest from July led by North Central Building Trades unions and United Auto Workers has just found success as the final construction steps for the Academy Chrysler in Kokomo, Indiana will be completed with union labor. The July protests erupted after the unions found out that the Academy Chrysler construction project was using non-local and non-union-labor, despite selling union-made vehicles and being located across the street from a union factory. A union representative also says the publicity from the protest effort has increased the amount of businesses in the Kokomo area seeking union contractors.
The National Treasury Employees Union has sued President Trump in response to an executive order that would allow Trump to recategorize policy-making employees in a way that would remove many of their employee protections. Under the executive order, federal agencies are to place any federal employees with policy-making jobs in this new category. The head of a civil service advisory council has already resigned in response to the rule, criticizing it as a way to require political loyalty of advisors. The union is asking that the D.C. District Court rule the order unlawful.
HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprises will collectively pay $1.45 million in back pay and interest to settle a pay discrimination lawsuit. The Department of Labor had alleged that a review of the companies’ records showed pay disparity between men and women in similar positions. 391 women will receive the back pay settlement. HP denies the pay discrimination allegations and says it agreed to the voluntary settlement to resolve the matter quickly.
Daily News & Commentary
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August 30
Seattle teachers vote to authorize a strike days before the school year begins; BNSF Railway’s AI dispatching system puts workers in danger; and a California court finds that the DOL’s pay cuts for non-citizen farmworkers are unlawful.
August 28
Calls for a “token tax” on AI consumption grow and the number of Amazon workers on federal aid explodes.
August 27
NLRB GC targets Biden-era precedent; Starbucks Workers United calls for boycott; Encore Boston Harbor workers authorize strike
August 26
Trump administration proposes $103,000 H-1B visa fee after court blocks earlier attempt; Illinois governor signs law enabling state investment in AFL-CIO housing trust; Deloitte pays $21.5 million to settle DOJ probe alleging DEI-related discrimination in federal contracts.
August 25
Hyundai workers reach a tentative agreement; Federal-sector unions sue the Trump Administration over OPM rule changes; Federal judge dismisses a teachers’ union free speech suit.
August 24
Boeing engineers and technicians reject contract proposals and authorize a strike; Ninth Circuit holds that unions charged under 8(b)(4)(D) cannot invoke the work-preservation defense to disregard 10(k) determination.