Bill Introduced to Redress High Court Ruling Penalizing Older Workers
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court took aim at older workers and age discrimination cases with a 5-4 ruling written by Justice Clarence Thomas that forces older workers to jump a higher than previous legal hurdle to prove age discrimination.
Today, the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act was introduced in Congress to restore vital civil rights protections for older workers in the face of the high court’s decision, Gross v. FBL Financial. That case, say lawmakers, rewrote civil rights laws and overturned well-established precedent, making it harder for workers facing age discrimination to enforce their rights.
The bill was introduced by the chairmen of three key congressional committees: Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), House Education and Labor Committee; Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee; and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Senate Judiciary Committee.
Few Jobs for Young Workers Part of a Long-Term Trend
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| Algernon Austin, Economic Policy Institute |
If you’re under age 25 and looking for a job, you’re going to have a much tougher time than your older brother or sister did in 1999. Then, 60 percent of 16-24-year-olds had a job. Today, just 48 percent do, the lowest rate of young worker employment since World War II.
Young workers are twice as likely to be unemployed as the overall population—18 percent, compared with the overall unemployment rate of 9.7 percent. The jobless rate soars to 27.3 percent for young African American workers and 21.3 percent for Hispanic workers.
(For more on the economic struggles of a broader group of young workers—under age 35, see our AFL-CIO report, “Young Workers a Lost Decade).”
This morning at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing examining job and economic problems of 20-something workers, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) warned:
It is clear that the drop in employment is not just the result of a sudden shock to the system, but is part of a larger trend. You cannot ignore the fact that 20 percent fewer young workers are participating in the labor market.
The consequences of reduced work opportunities among young Americans mean fewer long-term employment prospects, less earnings and decreased productivity….If these dramatic trends are not reversed, our nation faces the potential of a generation of youth disconnected from the job market.
Obama Nominates Occupational Health Expert to Head OSHA
In what is described as “a win for every worker,” President Obama yesterday nominated Dr. David Michaels to head the Occupational Safety and Heath Administration (OSHA).
On the science blog, Effective Measure, Revere writes:
OSHA once again has deeply committed health and safety professionals at its helm. It’s a big job and as important as they come. Lives depend on it….This is a win for every worker.
Michaels is an epidemiologist and research professor at the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. He has conducted numerous studies of the health effects of occupational exposure to toxic chemicals, including asbestos, metals and solvents, and has written extensively on science and regulatory policy.
The Employee Free Choice Act: From 2003 to Today
Members of Congress soon will cast votes that show us where they stand on the Employee Free Choice Act. As key senators engage in negotiations over the bill, supporters of workers’ freedom to form unions aren’t backing down on three key principles:
* Workers need to have a real choice to form a union and bargain for a better life, free from intimidation.
* We have to stop the endless delays and make sure workers can get a fair first contract.
* There have to be real penalties for violating the law.
Over the past few months, opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act have more than once declared the bill dead, but in fact we’re still working hard to to ensure labor law reform happens this year. We’ve come along way from where we were several years ago.
Pelosi: Congress Committed to Passing Employee Free Choice
Congress is “committed to passing the Employee Free Choice Act” and President Obama is “ready to sign it into law,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today told more than 3,000 union members and leaders from 13 unions at the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) in Washington, D.C.
According to The Hill blog, Pelosi told delegates to the BCTD’s 2009 Legislative Conference:
Our work in Congress is based on two truths: America’s economy is only as strong as America’s middle class; America’s middle class is only as strong as America’s unions.
Swine Flu Hits 26 Health Care Workers
The H1N1 (swine flu) crisis reminds us that each day, the nation’s front-line health care workers are the foundation upon which our health care system is built. As Jordan Barab, the acting head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), told the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee yesterday:
If they are not able to work due to illness, or unwilling to work due to fears for their health, individual patients and the country’s entire health care structure will suffer.
Hearing Highlights Need for Tougher Penalties for Job Safety and Health Violations
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Employers who violate workplace safety and health laws—even to the point where workers are killed or injured—now face such minimal penalties that too many ignore the law, witnesses told the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee during a hearing yesterday that coincided with Workers Memorial Day.
They called for tougher enforcement of safety laws and stronger sanctions against law-breaking employers.
Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO director of health and safety, told the panel:
Current OSHA enforcement and penalties are far too weak to provide any meaningful incentive for employers to address job hazards or to deter violations. As a result, workers are exposed to serious hazards that put them in danger and cause injury and death.
GAO: Labor Department Failing Miserably in Enforcing Wage Laws
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UPDATE: Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced the department’s Wage and Hour Division will add 250 new investigators, a staff increase of more than a third. The agency already has begun the process of adding 150 new investigators to its field offices. In addition, another 100 investigators will be hired to ensure that contractors on economic recovery projects comply with the applicable laws. This is a big step in the right direction to rebuild the agency, which lost more than 200 investigators during the Bush administration.
The federal agency that is supposed to protect workers and enforce minimum wage, overtime and child labor laws is failing miserably, leaving low-income workers vulnerable to wage theft. In a report released today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division “has left thousands of actual victims of wage theft who sought federal government assistance with nowhere to turn.”
GAO investigators posing as fictitious complainants filed 10 common complaints with Wage and Hour district offices across the country. In one case, the division failed to investigate a complaint that underage children in Modesto, Calif., were working during school hours at a meatpacking plant with dangerous machinery.
Proposal to Gut Employee Free Choice Act: Written by CEOs, for CEOs
A group of three big corporations—Starbucks, Whole Foods and Costco—have floated a proposal for labor law reform that just won’t cut it. These big corporations are casting this proposal as a “compromise,” but it’s not. It’s not good for workers, it’s good for CEOs, and it fails to address the problems that are keeping workers from being able to form unions.
The new proposal would enable corporations to unilaterally reject the will of a majority of employees who are seeking to form a union—as they do now. Unlike the Employee Free Choice Act, this proposal wouldn’t put the choice about how to form a union in the hands of workers, and it wouldn’t guarantee that workers who form a union can get a fair first contract. It would also make it easier for corporations to initiate drives to get rid of a union, which should be up to workers, not management.
Employee Free Choice Act Introduced in Congress
The Employee Free Choice Act was introduced in the House of Representatives and Senate today, launching the legislative battle to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
It’s a great day for working families and a sign of the change that America voted for last fall. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) announced the bill’s launch at the Senate, along with workers whose struggles to form unions illustrate the need to give workers, not bosses, the ability to choose how to form a union, as well as a guarantee of a contract and protection from employer intimidation, coercion and firing.
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Deborah Kelly, one of the workers testifying today before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee about the importance of protecting the freedom to form a union, says her union is vital to protect her and her family.
As a line man apprentice for the Chugach Electric Association, I work hard every day, in sometimes dangerous conditions, to provide power to the Anchorage, Alaska, area. I am truly honored to testify before Congress about how I have benefited from joining a union. Thanks to my union, I work with the most highly trained people in the industry and I know I will come home safe every night.
