American Compass vs AFL-CIO battle isn’t what it appears to be

Capitol Research Center cited CEI’s expert on Labor & Employment

The language of the title is notable, and evidence of where the Compass faction seeks its policy guidance. David Weil, a leftist academic who served in the Obama administration Department of Labor and saw the Senate reject (on a bipartisan vote) his Biden administration nomination to the same post he had held under Obama, wrote a book in 2014 titled The Fissured Workplace which Kishi lists as recommended “further reading” in his policy brief. Sean Higgins of the Competitive Enterprise Institute describes Weil’s positions:

The trend toward employers hiring contractors instead of traditional employees—that’s what he means by “fissured workplace”—has been an obsession of Weil’s. Most federal regulations regarding workers’ wages, benefits, and collective bargaining do not apply to contractors. Legally, they are considered to be independent businesses. Many companies use contractors heavily or even exclusively, in part because it saves on labor costs. It’s the economic model for most “gig economy” companies. And many workers prefer contract work—“freelancing”—as well since it gives them the freedom to work when they want and not get tied down to one job.

That is extremely frustrating for both unions and regulators because it puts a large section of the workforce out of reach for them. During the Obama years, Weil attempted to fix this by just unilaterally, declaring that all workers were employees. “[A]pplying the economic realities test in view of the expansive definition of ’employ’ under the [Fair Labor Standards] Act, most workers are employees under the FLSA,” DOL announced in a 2015 guidance letter.

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