Monday morning reflections for workplace watchers.
Post-mortem election | Lawsuit challenges OSHA powers
Rebekah Rainey: With most races called, unions critical to Democrats’ better-than-expected performance in the 2022 midterm election say they are already preparing for Georgia’s runoff, scheduled for December 6.
Merge the operation here to get the tuning out knocked on 2.7 million doors in the battlefield states from Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia, all races who have helped Democrats retain control of the Senate, the union said.
Now, Unite Here leaders say they plan to bring the “full force” of their program to Georgia ahead of the incumbent runoff Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock And Republican candidate Herschel Walker. This isn’t her first foray into Georgia politics. Unite Here says it has knocked on 1.6 million doors for Warnock in 2020 ahead of the last Senate runoff in 2021.
Part of the union’s medium-term strategy was also to recruit new members while they were knocking on doors. Members of the Unite Here Philadelphia campaign shared information about the union’s hotel staff training program – which guarantees placement in a union job – before even discussing the election with potential voters.
Since March, they have placed 99 workers in union jobs as part of the effort in Philadelphia, according to the union.
A member of Unite Here’s Workers to the Front prepares volunteers for a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 31, 2022.
Photo by Rebecca Rainey/Bloomberg Law
Over at DOL, The wage and hour division has targeted the care industry. The Wage Department’s ongoing enforcement initiative has recovered $28.6 million in wage arrears and damages for nearly 25,000 workers since efforts began last year.
The agency found violations in 80% of the more than 1,600 investigations conducted as part of the campaign, with a focus on inpatient care facilities, nursing facilities, and home health care providers, resulting in nearly $1.3 million in civil penalties for employers who willfully break the law, according to a statement last week.
The wage arm of the DOL said Frequent allegations were violations of overtime or minimum wage requirements and the misclassification of employees as independent contractors.
In the past week alone, WHD issued four press releases touting back wages and damages totaling nearly $2 million for at least 917 workers misclassified or awarded at nursing and home care businesses in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania little overtime was paid.
These cases are:
Bruce Rolfsen: OSHA might face “major” changes to its regulations if a federal lawsuit supported by the National Association of Home Builders is successful.
The lawsuit, now pending in the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, asks the court to find that in 1970 Congress delegated unconstitutional powers to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to decide which safety hazards to regulate and penalties to determine.
Allstates Refractory Contractors LLC of Waterville, Ohio, a general contractor specializing in industrial projects in glass, metals and petrochemical plants, filed the case.
It asks the court to prevent OSHA from enforcing safety rules not adopted by industry consensus standards in the early 1970s and to propose fines.
The case was appealed in the Sixth Circuit after a federal judge in Ohio dismissed Allstates’ claims.
In a Nov. 8 letter to the Circuit Court of Appeals, attorneys for Allstates explained the law creating OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, “Gives OSHA the authority to enact any safety rule it deems appropriate, based on nothing more than its own subjective judgement.”
The National Association of Home Builders and the National Federation of Independent Business filed an amicus letter in support of the lawsuit on Nov. 15.
“The unrestricted and sweeping delegation of authority to OSHA to both create occupational safety standards — a legislative function — and then to enforce those rules against myriad employers cannot be tolerated under the existing precedents,” the trade associations’ brief said.
The groups argued that a decision against OSHA was unlikely to be disastrous.
OSHA has not responded to a request to discuss the lawsuit and has not yet filed a statement with the Sixth Circuit. Oral negotiations are not scheduled.
However, the Labor Department’s attorneys wrote in a brief filed as the lawsuit was being heard in the district court “It’s hard to overstate the staggering scope of the relief sought.”
“Allstates requests this court to invalidate every single occupational safety standard that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Secretary of Labor have invalidated in the 50 years since Congress delegated the power to enact safety standards in the Occupational Safety and Health Act,” it said.
Tom Ward, NAHB’s vice president of legal affairs, said in an interview that reversing OSHA’s rules was a final decision could come from the US Supreme Court.
And a decision that Congress delegates too much power to legislate on could also have far-reaching implications for other law enforcement agencies that regulate construction, like the Environmental Protection Agency, Ward said.
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