Speaker 1: On this episode of Nuts World.
Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, Vincent Fernuccio and Jennifer Butler created Institute
Speaker 2: for the American Worker to better inform policy makers and
Speaker 2: stakeholders in Washington, d C. About current developments and labor policy.
Speaker 2: The Institute for the American Worker worked with Congressman Burgess
Speaker 2: Owens to introduce the Start Applying Labor Transparency, or SALT Act,
Speaker 2: to amend the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine, requiring greater transparency and financial transactions between
Speaker 2: unions and labor consultants, closing loopholes that have allowed backroom
Speaker 2: deals to thrive. Here to discuss the SALT Act, I'm
Speaker 2: really pleased to welcome my guest, Vincent Bernuccio. He is
Speaker 2: the president and co founder of Institute for the American Worker.
Speaker 2: He previously served in the US Department of Labor Transition
Speaker 2: team for both Trump administrations and served in the Joy
Speaker 2: gege W. Bush Administration's Department of Labor. Vincent, welcome and
Speaker 2: thank you for joining me on Each World.
Speaker 3: Mister speaker, Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 3: It is an absolute honor and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: How did you get interested in this whole topic.
Speaker 3: Well, I graduated law school and I was looking for
Speaker 3: a job. I actually we met when I was running
Speaker 3: for Congress in Michigan. I was a sacrificial land against
Speaker 3: John dingle.
Speaker 1: An active courage it.
Speaker 3: Was, but you know, helped me my career. I got
Speaker 3: on themigp and eventually it got me a appointment to
Speaker 3: the Department of Labor under then Assistant Secretary for Administration
Speaker 3: Management and Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary Pat Pizzella. And
Speaker 3: then I was off to the races. And that's what
Speaker 3: got me into labor policy and been doing it ever
Speaker 3: since the Bush administration.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: Let's start with President Trump's recent executive action restoring accountability
Speaker 2: to policy influencing positions within the federal workforce. Can you
Speaker 2: walk us through what Schedule F is and why the
Speaker 2: Trump administration sees it as essential for restoring accountability in
Speaker 2: the federal workforce.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so this is going to be one of the
Speaker 3: most impactful things I think the President does. I'll just
Speaker 3: give you a little bit of history. There's kind of
Speaker 3: been a ping pong on this. So in the first
Speaker 3: Trump administration, he issued an executive order called Schedule F
Speaker 3: President Biden got elected and put his hand on the Bible,
Speaker 3: went to the Oval Office, and it was one of
Speaker 3: the first things that he repealed. And then to President
Speaker 3: Trump in the current administration, one of the first things
Speaker 3: he did is reinstitute that the executive Order, and he's
Speaker 3: actually moved it from Schedule F to this Career Policy Schedule.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you what this does. This essentially
Speaker 3: makes fifty thousand federal employees, or two percent of the
Speaker 3: federal workforce, makes them at well employees just like most
Speaker 3: of the private sector, just like states like Utah, Texas, Florida, Kentucky,
Speaker 3: Georgia and others already have. And the reason this is
Speaker 3: so important is because if you have career federal employees
Speaker 3: that aren't doing their job, whether because they're either just
Speaker 3: not good, they just don't want to, or they simply
Speaker 3: just do not like the policies the president is putting forward,
Speaker 3: this gives politicals the ability to say, well, you're not
Speaker 3: doing your job, you should be let go. And you know,
Speaker 3: I've seen this firsthand in multiple administrations that you can
Speaker 3: see career federal bureaucrats actually throw sand in the gears
Speaker 3: of policy. And this would go a long way to
Speaker 3: make sure that that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: When Lincoln became president, there were about fifteen hundred policy positions.
Speaker 2: He eliminated twelve hundred of them because he knew that
Speaker 2: with Southerners and with Democrats, he couldn't win a civil
Speaker 2: war if they were the instrument of affecting things. So literally,
Speaker 2: out of a total fifteen hundred and twelve hundred left.
Speaker 2: And I always remind people that that giving the elected
Speaker 2: official the ability to actually drive the bureaucracy is central,
Speaker 2: because if you don't do that, the bureaucrats really are
Speaker 2: running the place and the elected officials are just on
Speaker 2: the surface. Does Schedule F still exist or has it
Speaker 2: now got a new title.
Speaker 3: It's got a new title, and it makes sense. So
Speaker 3: it was Schedule F under the first Trump administration. Now
Speaker 3: it is this policy Career schedule. And the reason for
Speaker 3: the change is, once again, these are still civil servants.
Speaker 3: They're still governed by the Civil Service for Formact. The
Speaker 3: only difference is that if they are in a what's
Speaker 3: known as policy influencing position, that if they're throwing sands
Speaker 3: in the gears of that policy and they're thwarting the
Speaker 3: people's elected representative. It's President Trump, it could be any president.
Speaker 3: This goes beyond administration. It also goes beyond policy. This
Speaker 3: isn't just a labor policy. This is energy, this is education,
Speaker 3: this is financial services. That those elected representatives could say, well,
Speaker 3: you know what, you're not doing your job. We don't
Speaker 3: have to go through this long, lengthy review process to
Speaker 3: dismiss you. It's just you're not doing your job. You're
Speaker 3: now an out well employee. You're throwing sand to the
Speaker 3: gears of policy. You should be removed.
Speaker 2: Well, obviously you're going to have some substantial opposition from
Speaker 2: the American Federation of Government Employees in the National Treasure
Speaker 2: Employees Union.
Speaker 1: What's their counter.
Speaker 2: Are they in favor of not having elected officials be effective?
Speaker 3: Yes. What they are trying to do is essentially throw
Speaker 3: sand in the gears of these type of reforms. What
Speaker 3: they are pushing for is making it as difficult as
Speaker 3: possible to remove federal employees whether or not they're doing
Speaker 3: their job. You see them opposing President Trump on this
Speaker 3: executive order soon to be rule. You see them trying
Speaker 3: to throwart his other executive actions, such as, you know,
Speaker 3: protecting national security. He issued another executive order recently that
Speaker 3: said that, you know, you can't have collective bargaining and
Speaker 3: multiple federal agencies that deal with national security, something that
Speaker 3: the law very clearly gives him the right to do
Speaker 3: and to determine which agencies those are. These unions they
Speaker 3: like the status quo, they like the protections, and what
Speaker 3: they don't like is accountability for those federal employees that
Speaker 3: are not doing their job. And frankly, I think that's
Speaker 3: a disservice to the good federal employees. And there are
Speaker 3: a lot of good federal employees out there. I've worked
Speaker 3: with good career federal employees that then have to pick
Speaker 3: up the slack for the ones that aren't doing what
Speaker 3: they're supposed to do.
Speaker 2: As a part of all this, you have been strongly
Speaker 2: supporting Representing Burgess Owen's bill, the Start Applying Labor Transparency
Speaker 2: Act or SOLD Act. Walk us through what would that
Speaker 2: do and why is that important?
Speaker 3: Absolutely so. Now we're shifting over from federal public sector
Speaker 3: unions too. Now we're talking about mostly private sector unions here.
Speaker 3: And this is what Representative Owen's bill does. There's a
Speaker 3: thing called salting. When unions come to organize, they can
Speaker 3: have organizers that take jobs will lie to the employer
Speaker 3: and say, well, I want to take this job, you know,
Speaker 3: just to work for you think, you know, I just
Speaker 3: want to be a barista at Starbucks, so give me
Speaker 3: a job. What they're really doing is they're actually paid
Speaker 3: by the union to take that job and then to
Speaker 3: start organizing. And not only do they lie to the employer,
Speaker 3: but they also lie to the employees. I'm just your
Speaker 3: fellow coworker. Hey, have you heard about this union? Maybe
Speaker 3: it's a good idea. We've actually seen quotes of workers
Speaker 3: that say, well, you know, we thought this was kind
Speaker 3: of schemey, I thought this person was my friend. Now
Speaker 3: I find out that they're being paid to organize me.
Speaker 3: What is this about. It actually gets so bad that
Speaker 3: you had a paid union salt testify before Congress and
Speaker 3: not put in their disclosure form that they were getting
Speaker 3: paid by the union. And they testified, Oh, I'm just
Speaker 3: a Starbucks barista, and then it later came about oh,
Speaker 3: actually no, you're not. You're actually being paid to organize Starbucks.
Speaker 3: That really called into question that person's testimony.
Speaker 1: Isn't that also a felony? Oh?
Speaker 3: I know that this was undee Chairwoman Virginia Fox. I
Speaker 3: know there were investigations going on to see what exactly happened,
Speaker 3: especially when that union salt signed that truth and Testimony form.
Speaker 2: Would this spill basically require that somebody who is being
Speaker 2: salted has to make it public.
Speaker 3: That's it? So right now, if an employer goes out
Speaker 3: and they hire a consultant to talk to their employees
Speaker 3: and say, you know, we don't think a union's right
Speaker 3: for us, that employer and the person they hire have
Speaker 3: to fill out certain forms with the Department of Labor.
Speaker 3: And you know, the first ones you do within a month.
Speaker 3: So we're just saying, why don't we have parity here?
Speaker 3: If the employer has to report hiring someone to talk
Speaker 3: to employees about unionization, the unions, if they hire someone
Speaker 3: to talk to employees about unionization, they should file the
Speaker 3: exact same forms.
Speaker 1: All of this is built in a sense.
Speaker 2: When the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine, which was the first big effort to create
Speaker 2: transparency in this area, why was it not adequate?
Speaker 3: Basically, you know, it gave discretion. I would argue that
Speaker 3: the Department of Labor actually has the ability to say
Speaker 3: that if you're talking to employees, whether you're on the
Speaker 3: union side or whether you're on the employer side, you
Speaker 3: should file these forms. However, that's not how it is
Speaker 3: being interpreted. So what Representative Owen's bill does is it says, well,
Speaker 3: since it's not being interpreted that way, let's be crystal
Speaker 3: clear within the STAF that if you're talking to employees,
Speaker 3: whether it's union or employer side, you should file these forms.
Speaker 2: The whole process of getting all this out in the
Speaker 2: open also relates back to what's really kind of a
Speaker 2: bizarre model in the government, where we the taxpayers, are
Speaker 2: actually paying for the union members to organize the government.
Speaker 2: See if people who are supposedly being paid to be
Speaker 2: civil servants, but they're actually being paid to be union organizers.
Speaker 3: That's right. That's a process called official time. And it's
Speaker 3: not just union organizers. It's actually doing all sorts of
Speaker 3: work on the taxpayer dime for the union. It's being
Speaker 3: a union official, in some cases, working full time for
Speaker 3: the union. This is actually something that President Trump did
Speaker 3: away with in his first term. You had union officials
Speaker 3: working full times in some cases for years for the union,
Speaker 3: but still getting their taxpayer salary. So once again President
Speaker 3: Trump deserves a lot of credit with this. He's put
Speaker 3: forth a policy to make sure that this is reported.
Speaker 3: Was reported in his first term, President Biden simply did
Speaker 3: not report it. Now President Trump is saying it has
Speaker 3: to be reported again. But he has actually gone further,
Speaker 3: and it's not just about how much the government is
Speaker 3: paying union officials with taxpayer dollars instead of doing their
Speaker 3: job to do union work. It's actually about how much
Speaker 3: time federal employees, agency employees are doing just to negotiate
Speaker 3: with the union, to handle grievances and all of these things.
Speaker 3: Once again, to this administration's credit, the Office of Personnel
Speaker 3: Management a couple weeks ago said not only should agencies
Speaker 3: report official time, but they should also report how much
Speaker 3: agency time is spent on collective bargaining and speaker if
Speaker 3: you like, I can get into some of the just
Speaker 3: kind of crazy things that we have seen unions negotiate
Speaker 3: over in the federal workforce.
Speaker 2: I think for the average taxpayer that would be really
Speaker 2: helpful because most of us, including me, I know in
Speaker 2: general that it's much worse than we think it is,
Speaker 2: but we don't really have specific examples.
Speaker 3: The first one is. I was on a panel under
Speaker 3: the first Trump administration, the Federal Service Impasses panel that
Speaker 3: did mediation and arbitration between the federal government and federal
Speaker 3: unions when they came to an impass. So I saw
Speaker 3: a lot of these cases firsthand. They're all public, and
Speaker 3: we actually put a study out on our website detail
Speaker 3: of all of this. It's all available at I the
Speaker 3: number four AW dot org, IFAW dot org. But let
Speaker 3: me give you a couple examples. So one you had
Speaker 3: a union negotiating over being able to smoke on tobacco
Speaker 3: free federal facilities. You had another one where they were
Speaker 3: negotiating over the right mister speaker reminds you the right
Speaker 3: to wear spandex in the office. And they had another
Speaker 3: one where they were negotiating over the height of modesty
Speaker 3: panels under cubicles. It was an office move and does
Speaker 3: the cubicle go two inches or four inches above the
Speaker 3: bottom of the floor. Now, they negotiated for years over
Speaker 3: this two inches versus four inches. They could have probably
Speaker 3: purchase go plated cubicles for the entire office. For the
Speaker 3: amount of money that they spent in official time, in
Speaker 3: staff time and travel and supplies, you name it. So
Speaker 3: those are the things that they're bargaining over, and those
Speaker 3: are the things that, thankfully will continue to come to
Speaker 3: light with these transparency measures from the administration.
Speaker 2: Turns out across the whole government to be a lot
Speaker 2: more money than people think.
Speaker 3: Well, official time alone in the first Trump administration was
Speaker 3: well over one hundred million three was one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty something million dollars in official time, and that doesn't
Speaker 3: count how much on the agency side was spent. So
Speaker 3: we're going to see probably some very high numbers, and
Speaker 3: that's year over year.
Speaker 2: A different front. Senator Josh Holly proposed the Faster Labor
Speaker 2: Contracts Act, the Speed Up Union contract negotiations. I find
Speaker 2: Holly interesting and complicated. What do you make of this bill?
Speaker 3: I think complicated is the right term. And unfortunately Senator
Speaker 3: Howlly has this larger framework, and this is the first
Speaker 3: bill from his larger framework, and it is pretty much
Speaker 3: part and parcel borrowed from the Democrat Union wish List Bill,
Speaker 3: the Protecting the Right to Organize Act or pro Act. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: the timing was a little unfortunate for Senator Hawley. So
Speaker 3: what this bill does is it would allow federal bureaucrats
Speaker 3: to impose an arbitration panel on two private parties. So
Speaker 3: if a union organizes an employer and within a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks, if they don't reach a collective bargaining agreement,
Speaker 3: first they say would go to mediation. So that's where
Speaker 3: both sides come together as essentially marriage counseling, try to
Speaker 3: get to an agreement. If that doesn't work within a
Speaker 3: very short amount of time, then they go to arbitration,
Speaker 3: where these federal bureaucrats would impose this three person panel
Speaker 3: that would actually write a contract for two private parties,
Speaker 3: one of which maybe never even agreed to the process
Speaker 3: in the first place. And I mean this everything at
Speaker 3: a work site, ours, pay, working conditions, you name it.
Speaker 3: So it's extremely troubling.
Speaker 1: Two questions, guys.
Speaker 2: One, it strikes me that that literally gives the union
Speaker 2: every reason not to agree.
Speaker 3: We've seen this in the public sector, not so much
Speaker 3: in the private sector, but in the public sector where yeah,
Speaker 3: you'll have one side and maybe it's the union, we'll
Speaker 3: stall the negotiations and then they get it to the arbitrator,
Speaker 3: and the arbitrator will just look at maybe another unionized
Speaker 3: facility and go well, they're getting this, so that works
Speaker 3: for them. This should work for this, whether city, town
Speaker 3: or in the Haley bill, now private company over here.
Speaker 3: But let me tell you kind of the unfortunate timing
Speaker 3: of this. So those federal bureaucrats, they are at the FMCS,
Speaker 3: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and right after this
Speaker 3: bill was introduced, President Trump announced that he was ratcheting
Speaker 3: back how much funding was going to fmcs. And actually,
Speaker 3: at the same time, it was a little old, was
Speaker 3: about a decade old, but there was re unearthed reports
Speaker 3: of corruption and overspending and all these problems with fmcs.
Speaker 3: So that was right after Senator Hawley introduced this bill
Speaker 3: that basically gave all of this power to the FMCS.
Speaker 3: So we'll see what happens with it. But I know
Speaker 3: a lot of people are extraordinarily skeptical of having federal
Speaker 3: bureaucrats dictate these panels that could then write entire contracts
Speaker 3: for two private parties.
Speaker 2: It seems to me that private sector unions have been
Speaker 2: steadily shrinking as a percent of the whole workforce, So
Speaker 2: trying to design a coercive bargaining system, it is essentially
Speaker 2: an effort to fit back to growing the unions in
Speaker 2: the face of the fact that the American workers seem
Speaker 2: to be leaving them.
Speaker 3: That's right. So this was the first year, and this
Speaker 3: is public in private that union membership drop below double
Speaker 3: digits nationwide. This is Baxsin's early nineteen hundreds. In the
Speaker 3: private sector, it's below six percent. I believe it's about
Speaker 3: five point nine percent right now. And it's not so
Speaker 3: much unions. I mean, I think unions can do good.
Speaker 3: I think unions can really help workers. The problem is
Speaker 3: that they are in this antiquated, one size fits all
Speaker 3: kind of industrial revolution collective bargaining model that does not
Speaker 3: allow for flexibility, It does not allow for ingenuity, it
Speaker 3: does not allow for individual workers to be rewarded. I
Speaker 3: think today's modern workforce is looking at that model and saying, no,
Speaker 3: that's not what I want. So instead of having this
Speaker 3: framework that center Hawley is putting out, instead of having
Speaker 3: all of these government mandates to think that if you
Speaker 3: really want to grow union membership and have unions thrive
Speaker 3: is have them adopt a new, flexible, individual focused professional
Speaker 3: service business model as opposed to the compulsion they have today.
Speaker 2: In a sense, you'd move people towards more of a
Speaker 2: everybody gets to be a professional, as in a law firm,
Speaker 2: rather than the kind of classic indust show era mass unionization.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's making them professional service organizations that you can
Speaker 3: join voluntarily. The employers aren't compelled to negotiate with them,
Speaker 3: but they will because unions can provide top notch services.
Speaker 3: But I think that's the way of the future, you know. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: even for workers now, a lot of unions not only
Speaker 3: have a floor for pay, but they also have a ceiling.
Speaker 3: So in a lot of unions and a lot of
Speaker 3: collective bargaining agreements, the only way you get ahead is
Speaker 3: unless you get another degree, is logging another year on
Speaker 3: the job. Doesn't matter how hard you work, how productive
Speaker 3: you are, how much money you make your boss, it's well,
Speaker 3: you're under the CBA and the only way you're getting
Speaker 3: a raise is by seniorti logging another year on the job.
Speaker 3: So I think that is why a lot of workers
Speaker 3: are looking at unions and saying, yeah, it's just not
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 1: We're entering a different era.
Speaker 2: It seems to me when you look both at the
Speaker 2: kind of bills like Halley for the private sector, and
Speaker 2: then you look at what's happening with the Trump administration
Speaker 2: reforms in the public sector. What do you think is
Speaker 2: the impact of public opinion? How important is it that
Speaker 2: the American people understand these things.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting because you see poll after poll unions
Speaker 3: do get high approval ratings. But the interesting thing is
Speaker 3: that when you scratch the surface and this goes to
Speaker 3: you that business model that a lot of workers just
Speaker 3: aren't buying right now is that, yeah, unions are good,
Speaker 3: we like unions. But then you scratch the surface and well,
Speaker 3: would you want a union at your workplace? Would you
Speaker 3: want to join a union? And that approval drops significantly.
Speaker 3: Unions they do have that public perception that they have support,
Speaker 3: but it's a lot of well it's good that they're
Speaker 3: out there, but I just don't think it's right for me.
Speaker 3: That's where I think that if you change that business
Speaker 3: model of the unions, the paradigm a collective bargaining, not
Speaker 3: what Senator Hawley is trying to do with his framework,
Speaker 3: and certainly not what we're seeing out of the Democrats
Speaker 3: with the Proact and all this force and compulsion and
Speaker 3: making it harder for workers to work for themselves or
Speaker 3: you know, attacking the franchise business model. All of this
Speaker 3: in the proact, that's the problem. But workers just want
Speaker 3: something different.
Speaker 2: I mean it does anyway that you have to put
Speaker 2: all this in the context of both competition from around
Speaker 2: the world and the scale of change that the emerging
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence is going to imply, and that, if anything,
Speaker 2: you're going to see more fluidity and more flexibility rather
Speaker 2: than more rigidity and the way the labor market operates
Speaker 2: over the next two or three generations. I mean, does
Speaker 2: that sort of fit your sense of it?
Speaker 3: That's absolutely correct, and you know you do see what
Speaker 3: does come to the flexibility and put AI aside for
Speaker 3: a second. When it does come to flexibility, being able
Speaker 3: to work for yourself, being able to achieve by your
Speaker 3: merit or how hard you work. You see that that's
Speaker 3: what workers are looking for. That's what modern and young
Speaker 3: workers are looking for, not this one size fits all model,
Speaker 3: not the compulsion of you have to do this or
Speaker 3: you have to live by this rigid contract. That is
Speaker 3: really where I think the future is. And I see
Speaker 3: the future in independent contract. You know, I was an
Speaker 3: independent contractor for a long time, and it can be
Speaker 3: very lucrative and it also gave me a lot of flexibility,
Speaker 3: you know, take on projects clients. I liked determine my
Speaker 3: own schedule when I wanted to be with my family.
Speaker 3: You see things like Representative Kylie has his Modern Worker
Speaker 3: Empowerment Bill and his Modern Worker Security Bill, and they're
Speaker 3: leaning into independent contracting, making it easier for workers to
Speaker 3: work for themselves, to get benefits if they're working for themselves.
Speaker 3: You saw that during the first Trump administration with their
Speaker 3: independent contract rule in the Department of Labor. Unfortunately, you
Speaker 3: see with the Proact in Congress, and what you saw
Speaker 3: coming out of the Body administration is that they were
Speaker 3: just going in the exact opposite direction and trying to
Speaker 3: make everyone in an employee and you know, borrowing the
Speaker 3: failed ideas from California of saying you can't work for yourself.
Speaker 2: Don't you think that to some extent that whole model
Speaker 2: of independent contractor may eventually be applied to the civil service.
Speaker 3: Federal government has a lot of independent contractors now. You
Speaker 3: do see that. You do see a lot of efforts
Speaker 3: out there, you know, kind of right size government. You know,
Speaker 3: there's ideas out there, like the Yellow Pages test if
Speaker 3: you can find something in the yellow pages. You shouldn't
Speaker 3: have a career sort of a servant doing it. It
Speaker 3: should just be contracted out. Contracting is something that you know,
Speaker 3: the federal government specifically does a lot of, and you
Speaker 3: know you do hear a lot about that, and I
Speaker 3: think there the efforts are to make contracting fair, you know,
Speaker 3: to get the best and most economical contractors without a
Speaker 3: lot of extra strings attached. And once again you saw
Speaker 3: a lot of those strings, especially in the Union context
Speaker 3: during the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: The whole process.
Speaker 2: It seems to me the long term trend is towards
Speaker 2: more flexibility, more unique designs, more opportunities because we now
Speaker 2: have the technology that can handle the complexity.
Speaker 3: Not only do we have the technology that can handle
Speaker 3: the complexity on that, but I think we have a
Speaker 3: workforce that that's what they want. They want that flexibility,
Speaker 3: they want that ability to earn and achieve on their
Speaker 3: own without being put into some one size fits all
Speaker 3: contract That essentially is a business model that is several
Speaker 3: generations too old and really has not adapted with the times.
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of the bills that
Speaker 3: look to favor that Model's simply just doubling down on
Speaker 3: that failed business model of the past that has not
Speaker 3: kept up with the economy and the modern workforce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you look out over the next three to
Speaker 2: five years, what do you see as the major projects
Speaker 2: that you will be undertaking.
Speaker 3: For I for a w Obviously we want to support
Speaker 3: the administration. They have this rule making out right now,
Speaker 3: going back to that policy career schedule. So we have
Speaker 3: a portion of our website, I the number four aw
Speaker 3: dot org that goes into detail on that rule. We
Speaker 3: have it on a regulation watch portion of O website,
Speaker 3: and we actually have a link there where people can
Speaker 3: go and comment and say, yes, this is a good idea.
Speaker 3: You know, the people's elected representatives should have a civil
Speaker 3: service that is not throwing sand in the gears of
Speaker 3: the policies that they were enacted to create. We see
Speaker 3: good labor bills that are coming out of Congress, like
Speaker 3: those two Kylie bills we were talking about before, the
Speaker 3: Modern Worker Empowerment Act and the Modern Worker Security Act.
Speaker 3: We see Representative Bob Ander, who's a freshman who I
Speaker 3: worked with very closely when he was in the Missouri
Speaker 3: state legislator. He introduced a bill called the Worker Enfranchisement Act,
Speaker 3: And this bill would say that if unions want to
Speaker 3: monopoly to represent everyone once again in a private sector workplace,
Speaker 3: that they should get a majority of everyone. And it
Speaker 3: actually calls for the same quorum that the National Labor
Speaker 3: Relations Board that will do these elections does and says that,
Speaker 3: you know, you should have two thirds of the employees voting,
Speaker 3: and if a majority of those two thirds, so really
Speaker 3: you're roughly saying, if you know, thirty three percent plus
Speaker 3: one of workers vote for the union, that's how they
Speaker 3: get in. But you shouldn't have these elections where single
Speaker 3: digits of percentages of employees vote to bring a union in.
Speaker 3: So those are just some of the bills. You know,
Speaker 3: we're very excited on. The Employee Rights Act was introduced
Speaker 3: last Congress. That was kind of all the good ideas
Speaker 3: that a lot of the Republicans had, or most of
Speaker 3: the good ideas a lot of Republicans had. So hopefully
Speaker 3: that will reintroduce this Congress, and that you know, there's
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of other good ideas out there, both
Speaker 3: coming from Congress and coming from the administration.
Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned in passing the new effort to
Speaker 2: basically outlaw independent working. Can you talk to us for
Speaker 2: a second about the whole political structure of California as
Speaker 2: it relates to compulsory unionization.
Speaker 3: Well, unions, as you can imagine, are extremely powerful in California,
Speaker 3: and I think that's a reason why there's some of
Speaker 3: the issues out there. So if we're talking about their
Speaker 3: attacks on independent contracting, and you know what put that
Speaker 3: in context of, you know, some of the federal work
Speaker 3: that we do is they passed what was known as
Speaker 3: AB five several years ago, and imediately after AB five
Speaker 3: was enacted, they realized we went too far. We did
Speaker 3: this thing, it was called the ABC test. It made
Speaker 3: independent contracting nearly impossible, and wanted to make everyone into
Speaker 3: an employee. Well, they realized that went too far, and
Speaker 3: they actually passed another bill and it was actually the
Speaker 3: same author of the original AB five passed another bill
Speaker 3: to create all these exemptions from AB five. And then
Speaker 3: after they did that, voters said, well, it still goes
Speaker 3: too far, and then they on when the ballot, passed
Speaker 3: more exemptions and ratcheted back AB five. But now that
Speaker 3: ABC test without those exemptions, that is exactly what's in
Speaker 3: Congress's protecting the right to organize act so without the exemptions,
Speaker 3: and when even California said you went too far, now
Speaker 3: Congress is pushing the exact same thing. So it is
Speaker 3: extremely troubling. And on our website we also have stories
Speaker 3: from California and AB five And I can think of
Speaker 3: one woman that actually had to leave the state because
Speaker 3: she wanted the flexibility. She did online teaching and she
Speaker 3: wanted to take care of her infant children and she
Speaker 3: couldn't do that if she was an employee. And when
Speaker 3: AB five passed, she realized, well, my business is drying up,
Speaker 3: so she actually moved out of state to make sure
Speaker 3: that she could keep helping to support her family and
Speaker 3: also have the flexibility to spend time with her kids.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of those stories on the website
Speaker 3: and it really is telling.
Speaker 2: Well till Marco, Well, look, I want to thank you
Speaker 2: both for the leadership you're providing for joining us today.
Speaker 2: Our listeners can find out more about what you do
Speaker 2: at the Institute for the American Worker by visiting your
Speaker 2: website at IFOAW dot org. And I really appreciate Vincent
Speaker 2: you're taking time to.
Speaker 1: Be with us.
Speaker 3: Hey, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: Thank you to my guest, Vincent Nuccio. You can learn
Speaker 2: more about the Institute for the American Worker on our
Speaker 2: show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by
Speaker 2: Ganglish Sweet sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producers Guarnsey Sloan.
Speaker 2: Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show
Speaker 2: was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team
Speaker 2: at gingwishweet sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope
Speaker 2: you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate us with
Speaker 2: five stars and give us a review so others can
Speaker 2: learn what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Right now, listeners of.
Speaker 2: News World can sign up for my three free weekly
Speaker 2: columns at gingwishree sixty dot com slash newsletter.
Speaker 1: I'm newt Gingga, which this is news World.
Speaker 3: Hm