AMERICA’S (LABOR) PASTIME: Labor Secretary Marty Walsh raised some eyebrows final week when he signaled a willingness to intervene in Major League Baseball’s ongoing labor deadlock, as first reported by POLITICO’s Jonathan Lemire.
Though his entreaty was basically “call me if you need me,” it signaled an eagerness for direct involvement in skilled sports activities negotiations that actually departs from the Obama administration’s strategy — not to mention former President Donald Trump’s.
Loyal Shift readers will recall that Walsh informed Eleanor final month that he “absolutely would love” to wade into employer-union negotiations if the respective sides consider he may very well be of service. But with spring coaching season nearing, a number of baseball historians mentioned the impact on talks could be principally symbolic.
“In terms of actual impact a labor secretary can have, it’s close to nil,” mentioned Robert F. Burk, who has authored a number of books on the game’s labor historical past.
DOL chiefs have gotten concerned in MLB standoffs earlier than, and it wasn’t precisely fruitful. In 1981, Raymond Donovan — the primary of Ronald Reagan’s three labor secretaries — dropped in throughout the warmth of the midseason gamers strike. Bill Clinton was so eager on placing his stamp on the final time there was a big MLB work stoppage, he not solely looped in his personal labor secretary, Robert Reich, but in addition considered one of Gerald Ford’s — William Usery, who served because the mediator for talks between the gamers affiliation and MLB.
“It was a flop,” Lee Lowenfish, creator of “The Imperfect Diamond,” informed POLITICO. He pointed to a 1995 ruling by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then a district courtroom choose in New York, within the gamers’ favor as what in the end moved the needle.
Even Reich shares that dim evaluation. Over the weekend, he revealed a chunk on Substack urging Walsh to “stay the hell away from baseball” and giving his front-row perspective on the episode.
Still, some are intently monitoring Walsh’s strikes as an indication of how he’ll reply to different labor disputes. “Whether it is just baseball players, or professional athletes more generally, these are the most notable people we talk about as union members,” mentioned Gwendolyn Lockman, a University of Texas PhD. candidate in U.S. historical past who research labor and leisure. “Those events do amplify one another.”
(And as a historic apart: Former President Richard Nixon, an avid sports activities fan, was as soon as tapped to arbitrate a playoff pay dispute between baseball’s umpires and the league — a decade after resigning from the White House in shame.)
GOOD MORNING. It’s Monday, Feb. 14. Welcome again to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on employment and immigration information. At threat of sounding tacky, you’re all our Valentines.
The warmest of welcomes to Nick Niedzwiadek, a longtime POLITICO who (formally) joined our crew final week by means of our breaking information desk and, earlier than that, our Albany bureau. No stress, it’s pronounced needs-wa-DECK (it means “little bear” in Polish, roughly.) Send suggestions, ideas and exclusives to [email protected] and n[email protected]. Follow us on Twitter at @eleanor_mueller and @nickniedz.
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LARGE-SCALE UI FIXES MUST WAIT FOR CONGRESS: The Labor Department is transferring shortly to fix the nation’s crumbling unemployment insurance coverage system — however authorities officers and labor consultants warn that with out laws from Congress, thousands and thousands of jobless Americans may once more be left with out checks, Eleanor and Katherine Landergan report.
Union heavyweights just like the AFL-CIO, together with employee advocacy teams together with the National Employment Law Project, are lobbying the White House to incorporate unemployment system reform in its fiscal 2023 funds request.
Without congressional motion, they are saying, historical past is prone to repeat itself: Past recessions additionally lent momentum to fixing the system, just for these efforts to fade because the economic system improved.
“There’s a chance that that’s going to happen this time,” Michele Evermore, deputy director of the Labor Department’s Office of Unemployment Insurance Modernization, mentioned. “It’s what always happens.”
DOL is partnering with state officers in Arkansas and New Jersey to launch pilot applications to check out fixes subsequent month, Evermore mentioned, and the division will “add more bells and whistles as time goes on.” A key focus can be sharing data between states and the feds.
“That sounds very elementary, but there’s a lot involved with that,” Evermore mentioned, reminiscent of exchanging claimant information and implementing person testing.
But regardless of how properly DOL administers its funds, Democrats and labor consultants say that Congress might want to mandate the extra structural overhaul wanted.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS: The Senate HELP Committee will maintain a listening to in Hart Tuesday morning “to discuss how to address barriers to employment — especially for women, people of color, people with disabilities, people struggling to make ends meet, and others — through improved workforce development.”
DOL SOLICITS INFO ON RETIREMENT THREATS: DOL is requesting data on what the company ought to do to guard retirement financial savings and pensions from dangers related to modifications in local weather.
The request for data follows an government order from Biden that directed the company to determine actions it could take “to safeguard the life savings and pensions of U.S. workers and families from the threats of climate-related financial risk.”
“The public and stakeholders in general are a valuable source of information for us” in figuring out the best way to transfer ahead, appearing Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security Ali Khawar mentioned in an announcement.
EMAILS ON ‘DINOBABIES’ ROIL IBM: IBM executives derided older employees at the corporate as “dinobabies” who ought to be made an “extinct species” in emails, Bloomberg’s Josh Eidelson experiences.
The communications present “highly incriminating animus” towards older staff by officers who at the time had been within the firm’s “highest ranks,” in line with a courtroom submitting Friday in an age discrimination case towards the corporate.
MASKS TEST NEWSOM-TEACHER RELATIONS: California Gov. Gavin Newsom appears able to remove masks necessities in faculties, as his counterparts in New Jersey, Oregon and Connecticut did this week. But Newsom can not go the place lecturers unions aren’t prepared, as was the case with college reopening a yr in the past, ourSusannah Luthi and Victoria Colliver report.
The California Teachers Association, which has greater than 300,000 members, declined to remark on its discussions with the Newsom administration. The state’s second-largest lecturers union, the 120,000-member California Federation of Teachers, says any finish to masks restrictions should have enough justification past political causes.
RELATED: “The Supreme Court rejects a bid by New York teachers to block a city vaccine mandate” from The New York Times
OZ BUSINESS HIT WITH LARGEST ICE FINE EVER: A tree-trimming enterprise partly owned by Senate candidate Mehmet Oz was as soon as fined $95 million by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over a scheme to knowingly make use of unlawful immigrants — the most important ever levied within the company’s historical past, the New York Post’s Jon Levine experiences.
“Dr. Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and Oprah protege, injected some star power into a closely-watched GOP Senate primary in Pennsylvania. The fight to replace the state’s retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey is one of several races that will determine control of the Senate for the remainder of President Biden’s term in office.”
“Neither Dr. Oz nor Lisa Oz have even worked at the company or had any involvement in decision-making regarding its business practices, period,” marketing campaign spokesperson Erin Perrine informed Levine.
At 10 a.m. The National Association of Community Health Centers holds its annual forumon “policy and issues” just about.
At 11 a.m. The Brookings Institution holdsa digital dialogue on “supervision, and state and federal roles in financial regulation.”
— “Clashing Executives, Office Romance, Angry Anchors: Inside the Week That Shook CNN,” from The Wall Street Journal
— “Long COVID is contributing to America’s labor shortage,” from Axios
— “How The Pandemic Is Changing Our Bodies,” from BuzzFeed News
— “A Rhodes Scholar barista and the fight to unionize Starbucks,” from The Washington Post
— “Higher Inflation Is Probably Costing You $276 a Month,” from The Wall Street Journal
— “America Runs on a Sick Workforce,” from Gawker
— “Thousands of vacancies at NC DHHS lead to burnout for state workers still on the job,” from the Raleigh News & Observer
— “Uber and Lyft are finally starting to look like different companies,” from The Verge
THAT’S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT!