Posted on 08/13/2018 8:14:28 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
PRO-UNION, STILL FOR TRUMP: As as many as half of Republicans who voted in the Missouri primary last week sided with unions and against the state’s right-to-work law in a ballot measure that overturned it, according to Jack Cardetti, a Democratic strategist and spokesman for the state’s anti-right-to-work campaign. Cardetti is no disinterested party, so that estimate may be high (though the returns show it’s certain plausible). But it’s remarkable any pro-union voters still favor Trump, given Trump’s staunchly anti-union policies. (POLITICO’s Timothy Noah reviewed them in November.) “Pro-union, pro-Trump voters say that even if they consider unions crucial, they see many other reasons to back Trump,” reports the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein.
Two union workers who spoke with Stein said they liked the president’s views on immigration. Leaders of the ballot measure to repeal right-to-work said they ran a non-partisan campaign, and don’t discount the possibility that some who voted against right-to-work will vote against Democrats in November. The reasons, Stein writes, could include “the party’s support of free trade policies, gun policy, position on immigration, and protests of police shootings of unarmed black men.” More here.
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. GOOD MORNING! It's Monday, Aug. 13, and this is Morning Shift, POLITICO's daily tipsheet on employment and immigration policy. Send tips, exclusives, and suggestions to thesson@politico.com, ikullgren@politico.com and tnoah@politico.com. Follow us on Twitter at @tedhesson, @IanKullgren and @TimothyNoah1.
CONGRESS SPARS OVER #METOO REFORMS: “Nearly a year after the #MeToo movement surged into the national consciousness, Congress is still far from a final deal on modernizing its own workplace harassment rules despite a slew of career-ending scandals in both parties,” POLITICO’s Elana Schor and Heather Caygle write.
“Talks on reshaping Capitol Hill's misconduct policy haven’t exactly stalled — they’re just plodding slowly amid tension between the Senate and House on how to reconcile competing bills. In a twist that’s particularly rare in an election year, because it doesn’t break along partisan lines, House Republicans and Democrats aren't at each other’s throats but instead are uniting to tout their harassment bill as superior to the Senate’s more watered-down product.”
The House bill would make members personally liable for harassment and discrimination settlements, create a legal adviser to help employees pursue claims and set up independent inquiries before any formal hearing. The Senate bill takes a softer approach, making lawmakers personally liable only for compensatory damages in settlements. It also would prevent confidential advisers from giving legal advice.
Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), who played a key role in shaping the House version, said senators “feel very strongly that we went too far in our bill, and they want a much weaker process. I don’t think that’s what the public expects of us.” Byrne, a business lawyer and a powerful voice on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, described the Senate proposal as “way too cumbersome and is frankly a disincentive for anybody to come forward.” More here.
IT’S TRUMP’S ECONOMY, STUPID: With the economy doing well by nearly all metrics, Republicans and Democrats are battling over who should get the credit, the New York Times’ Patricia Cohen writes. “The same gauges that illustrate [the Trump] administration’s economic successes also make clear that they are built on the achievements of the previous one, and that the economy is following the upward trajectory begun under President Barack Obama,” Cohen writes.
“Economists are quick to point out that presidents of both parties are assigned more credit or blame than they deserve for the economy, a colossus whose course is fashioned, bit by bit, from innumerable decisions made every day by investors, consumers, managers and merchants around the globe,” Cohen writes. “Even so, Mr. Trump — through a combination of skill and circumstance — has been better able than his predecessor to spotlight the economy’s gains, political scientists say. And his message never varies, no matter what the numbers show: an economy that was ruinous under Mr. Obama is ‘amazing’ under his own leadership.”
There could be another reason. The Associated Press’ fact-checking team notes that Trump often pulls numbers “out of thin air” when it comes to the economy, jobs and the deficit: “He refers to a current record-breaking gross domestic product for the U.S. where none exists and predicts a blockbuster 5 percent annual growth rate in the current quarter that hardly any economist sees. Hailing his trade policies in spite of fears of damage from the escalating trade disputes he’s provoked, Trump also falsely declares that his tariffs on foreign goods will help erase $21 trillion in national debt. The numbers don’t even come close.” Read the report from the AP here and the Times here.
INFLATION CONSUMES WAGE GROWTH: “Rising prices have erased U.S. workers’ meager wage gains, the latest sign strong economic growth has not translated into greater prosperity for the middle and working classes,” the Washington Post’s Heather Long reports. “Cost of living was up 2.9 percent from July 2017 to July 2018, the Labor Department reported Friday, an inflation rate that outstripped a 2.7 percent increase in wages over the same period. The average U.S. ‘real wage,’ a federal measure of pay that takes inflation into account, fell to $10.76 an hour last month, 2 cents down from where it was a year ago.”
“The stagnation in pay defies U.S. growth, which has increased in the past year and topped 4 percent in the second quarter of 2018 — the highest rate since mid-2014.” More here.
Related read: “Under Trump, the cost of living is rocketing. We analyzed why.” From Newsweek.
THIS WEEK:
CISSNA SPEAKS AT CIS EVENT: USCIS Director Francis Cissna will appear Wednesday at an event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit that favors steep curbs on legal immigration. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which classifies CIS as a hate group, said in a statement that Cissna’s appearance “reaffirms the cozy relationship between the Trump administration and the organized anti-immigrant movement in the United States.” The event starts at 9:30 a.m. at the National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor.
MIGRANT SAFETY HEARING: A Senate Homeland Security panel will hold a hearing Thursday on the government‘s efforts to protect unaccompanied migrant children from abuse.
Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), the chairman and ranking member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, respectively, said the hearing will follow up on findings that the HHS didn’t conduct thorough background checks on sponsors for children. The senators referenced a 2016 report showing that HHS placed eight children with human traffickers who forced them to work on an egg farm in Marion, Ohio. The hearing begins at 10 a.m. in Dirksen 342.
TRUCKIN’ PROBLEMS: The New York Times editorial board took aim at the trucking industry, citing it as an example of how workers are getting a raw deal despite a booming economy.
“Over the past several decades, inflation-adjusted driver pay has fallen sharply,” the editorial board writes. “The 1980 census found that the average male driver — virtually all drivers at the time were men — earned roughly $17,400 in 1979, or about $55,500 in 2017 dollars. That pay drop has coincided with drivers working longer hours — 60- to 80-hour weeks are common, drivers and researchers say — because they spend many more idle hours than they used to at warehouses and stores waiting to pick up cargo and make deliveries, time that typically goes unpaid.” More here.
EPIC SYSTEMS AFTERMATH: In what may be biggest consequence yet of the Supreme Court’s Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis decision in May, a federal judge cut nearly 3,000 Chipotle workers from a class-action lawsuit against the Mexican-themed fast food chain. The Supreme Court, in Epic Systems, ruled that employers can impose mandatory arbitration agreements to prevent workers from suing them collectively.
“In an order issued last week, Senior U.S. District Judge John Kane said that the Supreme Court ruling, known as Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, left him no choice but to give those folks the boot,” HuffPost’s Dave Jamieson writes. “Of the roughly 10,000 plaintiffs who claimed Chipotle didn’t pay them their full wages, 2,814 had signed a class- and collective-action waiver the company first implemented in 2014 to reduce its legal liabilities.” More here.
DNC REVERSES OIL DONATION BAN, CITING UNION UPROAR: The Democratic National Committee on Friday withdrew a policy banning donations from oil companies after objections from unions. “On a conference call Friday, [DNC Chairman Tom] Perez said that after the June resolution passed, members of the labor community voiced concerns about the ban, calling [it] ‘an attack on the working people in these industries.’ But he stressed that the DNC will still work to combat climate change,” the Hill’s Lisa Hagan and Tim Cama write.
“We have to draw the line that we are indeed a party of a big tent where all working people are welcome,” Perez said. “We’re not a party that punishes workers simply based on how they make ends meet.”
“We have been engaging with folks in the labor movement to address their concerns,” Perez continued. “At the same time, we remain committed to the Democratic Party platform, which states unequivocally our support for combating climate change.” More here.
SAG-AFTRA OFFERS HARASSMENT COUNSELING: “SAG-AFTRA, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, and the Actors Fund have announced they are working together to offer workplace sexual harassment counseling services for the 160,000 members of the union,” Variety’s Dave McNary writes.
“The organizations said Friday that the services are administered by trained counselors at the Actors Fund by phone and in person at the Actors Fund offices in Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago. The services include assessment, crisis and short-term supportive counseling, education on individual rights and legal avenues, referrals to related resources, and, when needed, referrals for other clinical services.” More here.
Related read: “Why didn’t unions stop sexual harassment?” from POLITICO’s Ian Kullgren in 2017.
OFCCP MEMO: “The U.S. Department of Labor office that monitors federal contractors for discrimination told its staff on Friday to factor into their work recent executive orders and court rulings on religious freedom and announced plans for narrower reviews targeting the specific types of discrimination it is tasked with rooting out,” Law360’s Braden Campbell reports.
“In a focused reviews directive, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs acting Director Craig Leen said the office is working on a ‘comprehensive initiative’ to employ more narrowly-tailored contractor reviews that focus on how contractors treat disabled workers, veterans and those in the protected classes outlined in Executive Order 11246, respectively. EO 11246 is a Johnson administration order that bars most federal contractors from discriminating against workers fitting into one of several protected categories.” More here.
KNAVES’ LAWYER PUSHES BACK: “The immigration lawyer representing first lady Melania Trump's parents pushed back against President Donald Trump's hardline stance on a category of family visa that paved the way for his in-laws' citizenship, calling the President's rhetoric ‘unconscionable,” CNN Politics’ Sophie Tatum writes. More here.
PAYING PICKETERS: “Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday signed a law allowing striking workers to collect unemployment benefits in New Jersey,” the Star-Ledger’s Samantha Marcus reports. “Lawmakers first proposed the legislation two years ago as Verizon workers waged a six-week strike against the telecommunications giant's contract demands. About 4,600 of the 40,000 East Coast employees on strike worked in New Jersey.” More here.
COFFEE BREAK:
— “Teamsters union leaders approve labor deals with UPS,” from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
— “400 flights are canceled after Ryanair pilots strike in 5 countries through Western Europe,” from the Associated Press
— “Congress is trying to run away from immigration. This fall may not let them.” from CNN Politics
— “Border patrol chief: Family separations began long before Trump” from The Hill
— “At Carrier, the Factory Trump Saved, Morale Is Through the Floor,” from The New York Times
— “Trump's hard-hearted immigration policies are a stain on the nation,” from the Los Angeles Times editorial board
— “Training to be a Border Patrol agent in the age of Trump,” from CNN
THAT’S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT.
Republicans are on the side of Teamsters now, and removing a person’s right to association?
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