OpenMarket: Labor and Employment

Trump’s decision to Institute a payroll tax holiday via an executive order over the weekend is a good idea even if its effectiveness as an aid to workers and the economy is somewhat limited. It is the area where he is on the strongest legal footing regarding the executive orders he signed over the weekend.

In July, 1.8 million new jobs were created, and the unemployment rate dropped to 10.2 percent. That is a welcome follow-up to the second quarter’s disastrous GDP decline, which was the steepest in American history. But there are threats to the recovery.

Activist Carl DeMaio caused a stir this week by holding a press conference in which he declared that hiring tutors could be could result in people getting fines under California’s AB5 law. The author of the law, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, has disputed that claim, but her own office has indicated that there are potential circumstances where it could happen.

At the end of last month the Department of Labor published a new notice of proposed rulemaking on the investment choices that private pension fund managers are allowed to make on behalf of their beneficiaries. The most proposed rule would clarify when it is possible to use environmental, social, and governance considerations when investing on behalf of pension fund beneficiaries.

Progressives are fond of saying that authority never gives up power easily. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is demonstrating that by rewriting the ballot language for Proposition 22, which covers rideshare drivers, in order to frame the issue in the most negative way he can.

This is one of those things that is kind of obvious but needs to be pointed out anyway: Reversing opening your state’s economy due to fears of a COVID-19 resurgence is something that comes at an economic price. The Labor Department’s most recent report on unemployment insurance claims bears out.

Some lawmakers and their union allies want to use the COVID-19 crisis to institute a radical change to union elections allow them to be held electronically.Critics argue it would open the system to fraud and other shenanigans.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce begged Congress on Thursday to scale back the $600 weekly unemployment benefit bonus it has been giving to U.S. workers. The nation’s top business trade association said the benefits included in the CARES Act were undermining the economic recovery by discouraging people from seeking work.  

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy on Tuesday jumped on the bandwagon that California Governor Gavin Newsom started by suing rideshare companies Uber and Lyft in her state for the crime of “misclassifying their drivers as independent contractors.” Healy is accusing them of skirting their responsibility to abide by state and federal employment regulations like minimum wage and overtime.

A favorite tactic used by unions to prevent membership losses, and the accompanying loss of dues money, is making the process of opting out of as difficult and confusing as possible. Government employee unions may now get a taste of their own medicine thanks to a federal rule announced Thursday that puts the burden on unions, not workers, to deal with the process.