{"id":77568,"date":"2022-02-07T19:11:59","date_gmt":"2022-02-07T13:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/biden-adopts-recommendations-for-promoting-union-membership\/"},"modified":"2022-02-07T19:11:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T13:41:59","slug":"biden-adopts-recommendations-for-promoting-union-membership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/biden-adopts-recommendations-for-promoting-union-membership\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Adopts Recommendations for Promoting Union Membership"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">The White House on Monday released a report outlining several dozen steps it intends to take to promote union membership and collective bargaining among both public and private sector employees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">The report is the product of a task force that President Biden created through an executive order in April. A White House statement said the president had accepted the task force\u2019s nearly 70 recommendations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">Many of the steps would make it easier for federal workers and employees of contractors to unionize, including ensuring that union organizers have access to employees on federal property, which does not always happen today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">The report also recommends creating preferences in federal grant and loan programs for employers who have strong labor standards, preventing employers from spending federal contract money on anti-union campaigns and making employees aware of their organizing rights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">When the task force was created, some White House officials indicated that they supported considering labor union membership as a factor in awarding government contracts, but the task force recommendations generally did not emphasize this approach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">Under federal procurement law, the government generally cannot deny contracts to companies it deems hostile to labor unions. But it may be able to consider a company\u2019s posture toward unions as a factor in certain narrow cases \u2014 for example, when labor strife resulting from an aggressive anti-union campaign could substantially delay the provision of some important good or service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">The executive order Mr. Biden signed creating the task force required it to submit recommendations within 180 days, at which point the president would review them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">One key premise of the task force was that the National Labor Relations Act, the 1935 law that protects federal labor rights, explicitly encourage collective bargaining, and yet, <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/statements-releases\/2021\/04\/26\/fact-sheet-executive-order-establishing-the-white-house-task-force-on-worker-organizing-and-empowerment\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Biden White House<\/a>, no previous administration had explored ways that the executive branch could do so systematically.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">The ambition of the task force was twofold: to enact policies for federal agencies and contractors that encourage unionization and to model best practices for employers in the public and private sectors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">The president\u2019s task force will submit a second report describing progress on its recommendations and proposing additional ones in six months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">Union officials and labor experts consider Mr. Biden to be among the most pro-labor presidents ever. He moved quickly to oust Trump appointees viewed as unsympathetic to labor and to undo Trump-era rules that weakened protections for workers, and signed legislation that secured tens of billions of dollars to stabilize union pension plans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">Mr. Biden has occasionally used his bully pulpit to urge employers not to undermine workers\u2019 labor rights or bargaining positions, as when he <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/POTUS\/status\/1366191901196644354\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">warned against coercing<\/a> workers who were weighing unionizing during a prominent union election at Amazon last year. He later called Kellogg\u2019s plan to permanently replace striking workers \u201can existential attack\u201d on its union members.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">Last week, Mr. Biden <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/statements-releases\/2022\/02\/03\/fact-sheet-president-biden-signs-executive-order-to-boost-quality-of-federal-construction-projects\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">signed an executive order<\/a> requiring so-called project labor agreements \u2014 agreements between construction unions and contractors that set wages and working conditions \u2014 on federal construction projects worth more than $35 million, a move that the White House estimates could affect nearly 200,000 workers. He had previously signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 per hour from $10.95.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">But despite Mr. Biden\u2019s backing, and polls showing <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/354455\/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">widespread public support<\/a> for unions, the rate of union membership nationwide remains stuck at a mere 10 percent, its lowest in decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-axufdj evys1bk0\">The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, which Mr. Biden supports, would make it easier to unionize by preventing companies from holding mandatory anti-union meetings and imposing financial penalties on employers that retaliate against workers seeking to unionize. It passed the House in March but remains a long shot in the Senate. Democrats may seek to pass some of its provisions along party lines this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The White House on Monday released a report outlining several dozen steps it intends to take to promote union membership and collective bargaining among both public and private sector employees. The report is the product of a task force that President Biden created through an executive order in April. A White House statement said the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":77569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3266],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Biden-Adopts-Recommendations-for-Promoting-Union-Membership.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}