New Congress Provides Challenges and Opportunities

The 2022 midterm elections resulted in a divided US Congress, with Republicans gaining a slight majority in the House of Representatives and Democrats picking up a seat in the Senate. The new 118th Congress brings new leaders of the House and Senate committees that have jurisdiction over the National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Labor, creating again a challenging environment to get pro-labor legislation passed.

The new Chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, formerly named the Education and Labor Committee, is Virginia Foxx (R-NC-5). One of her first acts as Chair was to delete “Labor” from the Committee’s name, calling the word “Marxist.” “The Committee will no longer be a lackey for big labor,” she declared. Her elevation to Chair of the Committee promises to create a hostile space for labor unions and other worker organizations due to her extreme anti-union reputation, built on decades of opposing increased safety standards, the right to organize and collectively bargain, and against securing pension/ retirement benefits for workers.

A recent tweet from the new Committee leadership provides a sign of what we can expect with respect to labor issues:

In this tweet, unions are accused — by the Committee that regulates them — of making “American companies less efficient, less profitable, and less competitive, and they cost American jobs.”

The Committee is likely to aggressively oppose all efforts to protect the rights of workers to organize unions and have a voice in the workplace, including passing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, and the Biden Administration’s efforts to protect workers’ rights through regulations which promote Project Labor Agreements and modernize the Davis-Bacon Act. The Committee already attempted to repeal a rule designed to protect the ability of union pensions to invest in construction projects that create union jobs.

The legislative climate will be much more labor-friendly in the Senate. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is the new Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. He replaces Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), who is now Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee.

Senator Sanders is the lead sponsor of the PRO Act and he has demonstrated strong support for workers. One of the first hearings the HELP Committee held was titled “Defending the Right of Workers to Organize Unions Free from Corporate Union Busting.” In addition, the HELP Committee is expected to hold hearings on the PRO Act and vote to send the legislation to the floor to be considered by the full Senate. The Committee also subpoenaed the CEO of Starbucks to shine a light on their union busting tactics. Senator Sanders has repeatedly indicated that the Committee will make protecting workers’ rights a priority.