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| By Nick Niedzwiadek | | | CURTAIN CALL: President Joe Biden should be remembered for his willingness to leverage the federal government to boost workers’ power on the job and improve their ability to demand respect from employers, acting Labor Secretary Julie Su said in an interview with POLITICO. “Never before has a president so clearly and unapologetically put working people first, in everything from how we were going to recover from the deep economic threats that we inherited in 2021, to where we were going to place our historic investments and to who we were going to fight for when it came to enforcing the law,” Su said. “What we were trying to do was not just fix things at the margins, not just make things a little bit better, but fundamentally alter the way our economy operates.” Su touted DOL’s increased enforcement of child labor laws, pointing to multimillion dollar settlements reached with large meat processors this month, as well as the spate of union organizing activity that occurred under the Biden administration and the job growth during his tenure. At the same time, the administration struggled to contain inflation, which ate away at wage growth and contributed to a broad sense of economic unease that likely cost Democrats at the ballot box this November. “We've laid a strong foundation,” she said. “To me, the analysis is not that we were doing the wrong things. It's not that we went too bold, but that we have to go even bolder when it comes to defending and fighting for working people.” However, the Biden administration regularly pushed the boundary on what it could do unilaterally, frequently drawing outrage from business groups and prompting litigation that has left numerous labor policies — including overtime pay expansion and the Federal Trade Commission’s non-compete ban — stymied in courts. More for Pro subscribers here. GOOD MONDAY MORNING. It’s Inauguration Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Welcome back to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on labor and employment-related immigration. This newsletter, like Congress, runs on a certain highly caffeinated beverage. Send feedback, tips and exclusives to nniedzwiadek@politico.com and lukenye@politico.com. Follow us on X at @NickNiedz and @Lawrence_Ukenye.
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PARITY PUSHBACK: The ERISA Industry Committee on Friday sued the federal government for finalizing a rule that requires insurers to cover mental health care on par with other types of medical care that recently took effect, our Kelly Hooper reports for Pro subscribers. The final rule, issued in September, is aimed at making sure insurers comply with a federal law requiring them to provide mental health care on the same terms as other care — threatening big fines if they don’t. ERIC argues in the suit that the regulations are too vague and will impose cost burdens on employers that offer health benefits. “[T]he new regulations … threaten the ability of employers to offer high quality, affordable coverage for the mental health and substance use disorder needs of employees and their families,” Tom Christina, executive director of the ERIC Legal Center, said in a release.
Counterpoint: “Employers still skimp on mental health benefits, regulators say,” from BenefitsPRO. TAKING STOCK OF ESOPs: The Labor Department last week proposed rules for Employee Stock Ownership Plans aimed at ensuring shares are being bought and sold at their fair market value. “The proposal seeks to strengthen protections for plan participants while providing fiduciaries with clear guidance on determining the fair market value of employer stock in these transactions,” PLANSPONSOR reports. Lisa Gomez, head of DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, said in a release that workers’ “retirement security, and often their livelihood, depend on ESOP fiduciaries getting the price right.” James Bonham, the president and CEO of The ESOP Association, said that the industry has been waiting decades for clear “adequate consideration” regulations and it is currently reviewing DOL’s proposal. “Our goal is to make it easier, more transparent, and less costly for ESOPs to be formed and operated,” he said in a statement. “More Americans should have the opportunity to receive the benefits of an ESOP, and this regulation should have that goal as well.” More agency news: “EEOC Says GM, Union Benefit Rule Dings Older Auto Workers,” from Law360.
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| DOGE THAT WON’T HUNT: Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-lead of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, may be on the outs as he preps a gubernatorial bid in Ohio. Ramaswamy could announce his plans as before the end of the month, our Adam Wren reports. Ramaswamy showed up at an all-hands DOGE meeting at SpaceX in Washington over the weekend. But it's an open question if he’ll be around by Monday — you know, when he and Elon Musk could actually begin to carry out their vision. What to watch: “A person well briefed on the inner workings of DOGE said that multiple executive orders related to its purview are expected in the first week of the Trump administration, including one that deals with government contracts and one that assigns how the DOGE workforce is embedded throughout the federal government.” Related: “Inside the Early Days of DOGE,” from The Wall Street Journal. COMING SOON: “Get ready for Trump’s executive order onslaught,” from Alice Miranda Ollstein, with assists from across the POLITICO team — including your Shift host. And “GOP leaders briefed on Trump’s blizzard of executive orders,” from our Benjamin Guggenheim and Meredith Lee Hill.
| | DISSENT IN THE RANKS: Dissidents in the nation’s largest health care union are building a challenge to its longtime leader as organized labor assesses its approach for the next four years under Trump, our Maya Kaufman reports. The opposition slate at 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East is taking on its president of nearly two decades, George Gresham, in an East Coast fight with national implications. Those looking to oust the ailing Gresham argue the union needs new ideas to effectively challenge congressional Republicans over potential Medicaid cuts and Trump’s deportation plans. Gresham, who is based in New York, presides over a 400,000-member union with an annual budget in excess of $200 million, overseeing operations in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida and Washington, D.C. Brushback: “I believe that 1199’s internal elections should never be driven by personal ambition or whose ‘turn’ it is to be president — but rather should be solely focused on members’ needs,” Gresham told POLITICO. “The plain fact is that the opposition slate has zero experience heading a union and zero clout with key elected officials, which puts our members’ wages, benefits and jobs at risk.” NOT SO FAST: A DOJ trial attorney is challenging the validity of the National Treasury Employees Union’s recent organizing victories at the agency. Jeffrey Morrison argues that the Federal Labor Relations Authority erred in allowing the elections at the Civil Rights Division and the Environment and Natural Resources Division to be held earlier this month, citing a 1984 FLRA precedent that held that DOJ’s civil rights employees were not sufficiently distinct enough to comprise a union of their own. “In the midst of a change in administration, NTEU union bosses and Biden DOJ officials appear to have colluded to flout longstanding precedent that says Justice Department attorneys cannot legally be unionized division by division,” National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix, whose organization is assisting Morrison, said in a release. More union news: “Workers at Some of DC’s Best-Known Restaurants Move to Unionize,” from the Washingtonian.
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| FOR CHAVEZ-DEREMER’S TO-DO LIST: Top Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee called on the Labor Department to drop the Biden administration’s plan to sunset the 14(c) certificate program, which permits employers to pay workers with disabilities less than the standard minimum wage. “DOL does not have the statutory authority to stop issuing 14(c) certificates,” Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) wrote with committee predecessor Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and two others. “Eliminating access to 14(c) certificates will limit opportunities for workers who rely on their jobs not just for a paycheck but also to learn meaningful skills and to find personal fulfillment.” DOL’s proposed rule would halt new certificates from being handed out and phase-out existing ones over a three-year span. But the policy’s fate will now be up to the Trump administration. JK, NVM: The group of progressive congressional staffers who floated a plan to establish 32-hour work weeks withdrew the request a day after coming in for near-universal mockery. The group said its letter had failed to make clear that progressive staff were dedicated to “serving the American people no matter how many hours it takes to get the job done” and that there were “well-known, longstanding workplace issues that deserve Congress’s immediate attention,” our Nicholas Wu reports. More Hill news: “The House Is Trying to Make Congressional Jobs Easier With AI,” from NOTUS. Even more: “House conservative defies Johnson over remote voting for new moms in Congress,” from CNN.
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| PAYING FOR COLLEGE (ATHLETES): The Biden Justice Department on Friday objected to a proposed legal settlement in an antitrust case over college athletes’ compensation, our Juan Perez reports for Pro subscribers. DOJ argued that the framework agreement — which if approved would pay student-athletes billions of dollars in damages and create an unprecedented compensation model during the next decade — would actually allow schools to continue price fixing. “Not only does this enshrine, for ten years, an agreement among competitors to limit compensation, a facially anticompetitive restraint, but the NCAA may attempt to use the cap’s incorporation into a court-approved settlement as a shield against future antitrust actions seeking more complete injunctive relief,” the department wrote. The statement of interest submitted to District Judge Claudia Wilken comes a day after the Education Department indicated that name, image and likeness deals between universities and athletes could violate Title IX anti-discrimination laws if they do not provide male and female athletes “equivalent” benefits. That position is non-binding and could be revisited by Trump. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sarcastically called it “great idea if Biden’s intent is to kill both men’s and women’s college sports.” “Mandating so-called equal pay when not all sports generate equal revenue will force some colleges out of athletics altogether,” he said in a statement. Irony alert: “Misogynistic Taunts Cost Philadelphia Eagles Fan His Job at D.E.I. Firm,” from The New York Times.
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| HERE IT COMES: President-elect Donald Trump is eager to make good on his vast promises to crack down on immigration in the U.S. as soon as he is sworn in later today. He’ll do so through a slew of executive orders and actions, launching the process of resurrecting policies from his first term, shredding Biden administration immigration policy and taking what Trump officials have labeled the “handcuffs” off of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, our Myah Ward and Daniella Diaz report. But his most aggressive policies, such as large-scale deportation initiatives, won’t be ready on Day One and will need time to scale up. More immigration news: “Senate greenlights GOP’s first immigration bill, clearing the way for passage,” from our Daniella Diaz and Ursula Perano.
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— “Biden declares the ERA the law of the land — but it likely will not matter,” from our Eli Stokols and Adam Cancryn. — “What Happened After Florida Cracked Down on Illegal Immigration,” from The Wall Street Journal. — “Mozilla Settles Case Over Its Refusal to Hire Apple Activist,” from Bloomberg. THAT’S YOUR SHIFT! | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us
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