Some labor news: SEIU has been pressing Biden to immediately fire Peter Robb, the NLRB's Trump-appointed general counsel. That's not normally done under a new prez. It would be a precedent-setting move that shows Biden willing to play hardball for unions huffpost.com/entry/joe-bide…
SEIU sent a memo to the Biden transition team calling Robb an “extreme, anti-union ideologue” and a “uniquely destructive figure.” SEIU has made the same case to other unions. Source tells me the AFL-CIO supports canning Robb as well. They all want him out of there ASAP.
With a Dem majority in the Senate, the main risk here is that a future R president will do the same, and fire a Dem general counsel who's got time left at the board. The can-Robb-now camp basically says "let's not bank on the GOP observing this norm next time they're in charge"
The McConnell-Cornyn "liability protection" proposal is pretty radical. Not only would it block lawsuits over COVID exposure, it would make it just about impossible for OSHA to enforce basic workplace safety laws. They couldn't even dole out the tiny fines they've been doing.
I guess they need to make sure Smithfield doesn't get hit with another monster $13,494 fine after some workers die from coronavirus.
The proposal would also protect corporations from enforcement/lawsuits related to a host of other employment laws: FLSA (wage theft), WARN (notice ahead of layoffs), Civil Rights Act and ADA (discrimination)
Many people don't realize this but OSHA has jurisdiction over the White House. Employees there could file complaints against Trump for endangering them with coronavirus. One former OSHA official tells me there's a strong case to be made he's violating the general duty clause. 1/x
This is the general duty clause -- OSHA has already used it to cite meatpacking plants for endangering workers in the pandemic. Sure looks like a strong case to me! 2/x
Former official says Trump may also be violating OSHA standards on personal protective equipment and respirators, and recklessly endangering White House employees in the process. 3/x
The @MachinistsUnion members have endorsed @JoeBiden. This is the only international union I know of that had rank-and-file members vote for who to endorse. Ballots were cast this week. (Most endorsements come from an executive board.) Union hasn’t yet released the full results.
I think it’s very cool that the Machinists did an endorsement by member vote. Not sure why more don’t do it: your members can’t complain about the endorsement being done in a smoky back room! Actually, I know exactly why more don’t do it.
Here are the full results. Biden beat Bernie 36-26. And Trump got 34.
So what's it like for low-wage women who need to pump breastmilk at work? We obtained nearly 400 federal investigations involving the "nursing mothers" law. The findings in these cases are sad and disturbing. I'm going to walk through them here. 1/X huffpost.com/entry/how-empl…
Federal law - if it covers you - guarantees reasonable time and a clean space to pump at work, thanks to Obamacare. We found employers all over the country had violated that law -- including household names like Walmart, Lowes, McDonald's, IHOP and the US Postal Service. 2/X
There's a lot of pressure on women to breastfeed for as long as they can. The reality is many bosses make it impossible. In so many cases, women said they gave up on breastfeeding because they couldn't get breaks or had to pump somewhere filthy. 3/X