Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experience shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Vincent Bernuccio, president of the Institute
for the American Worker. We discuss, among other things, the
Employee Rights Act of twenty twenty five, legislation that seeks
to modernize outdated federal label laws to meet the needs
of today's workers. Its proponents say the bill is aimed
at promoting growth, freedom, and innovation, while also ensuring our
laws protect workers and guarantee unions are acting in the
best interest of union members. Vincent, thank you so much
for joining us in this edition of the Federalist Radio
app Hey, thank you for having me on. I appreciate
it absolutely. This is known also as the Era. It
has been taken up in committee. Give us, if you will,
a broader overview of what it hopes to do and
where it stands in the process right now.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, big kudos to Congressman Rick Allen from Georgia
for introducing this. He just introduced it a couple weeks ago.
The Employee Rights Act is quite simply the most comprehensive
pro worker labor legislation of this Congress. It protects workers
is right to a secret ballot in union organizing elections.
It protects their privacy, It gives them more say on
how their money is spent on politics. It protects independent
contractors and small business owners' ability to own a franchise,
does a bunch of other things, but I don't want
to believe in the point. It is simply one of
the best pieces of labor legislation for workers out in
Congress today, and just once again want to applaud Congressman
Allen for that.
Speaker 1: Well, this also takes up, you know, years and decades
upon decades of you know, what I think a lot
of folks in the worker rights movement would say is entrenched,
an entrenched imbalance in the power of unions versus the
power of the individual, particularly the individual who does not
want to be in it. The individual rule that has
for many years been forced to pay union dues for
services that the individual does not want. Particularly on the
political side, that's a huge issue. This bill would seem
to delve into these kinds of areas with just what
you laid.
Speaker 2: Out, absolutely, and it doesn't in a couple different ways.
We talked about the protecting the right to a secret
ballot for workers in right to work states, and I
know you know what right to work is, but just
to recap right to work simply means that a union
can't get a worker fired for not paying them. So
in those states where workers can fully opt out of
paying union fees, it also now gives them the right
to decide.
Speaker 3: Whether they want to be under the union contract or not.
Speaker 2: Right now, even in right to work states, workers are
forced under a union contract. Even if they opt out
of the union they want nothing to do with the union,
they're still stuck by the terms. So it's a very
innovative of approaching the eer called workers choice that gives
workers that choice to say, yeah, I don't want anything
to do with the union, I'm.
Speaker 3: Not going to pay you.
Speaker 2: I want to be like the over ninety three percent
of private sector workers that represent themselves absolutely.
Speaker 1: And as we see over time, the pro union left
in this country, the Democratic Party, very much tied at
the hip with big labor, has obviously benefited through financial contributions.
They have threatened time and time again to push legislation
that would get rid of right to work laws these
sorts of things. Does this bill protect right to work states?
Does this bill protect right to work concepts in America?
Speaker 2: This is not the national right to work at but
once again it does protect the secret ballot. It does
give workers in those right to work states that ability
to choose whether or not to be under the union contract.
Going back to your point on the union politics, even
in non right to work states, once again, where work
unions can get workers fired for not paying them, it
gives union members the ability to opt in on a
yearly basis to political spending of the unions. Instead of
just signing up once and being stuck in perpetuity. It
gives them that annual ability to make that decision and
not be trapped into funding union politics. You are also
talking about, you know, intimidation, things like that. Besides the
secret ballot, it also includes the Freedom from Union Violence Act.
Right now, unions have a loophole in federal RICO law
saying that they can't be prosecuted.
Speaker 3: The ERA does away with that.
Speaker 2: It also does away with another loophole unfortunately promulgated under
the National Labor Relations Board under the Biden administration, that
allows unions and union organizers to harass workers, use racist, sexists,
all sorts of vile language, and stops employers from protecting
their employees from that. The ERA says that employers can
protect their employees from that type of harassment. So, once again,
it's a very big bill. There's a lot of great
provisions in it. Those are just a few samplings for
what we were talking about.
Speaker 1: Now, there have been myriad examples of the kind of
abuses you've talked about. I know there are hotel workers
in California, Illinois, and elsewhere that have had reported terrible
stories about what they've experienced and trying to extricate themselves
from the unions that represent them. I know there are
teachers across this country who have experienced some tales of
horror as well on that front. Are there is your
organization dealing in particular with workers going through these kinds
of abuses? What are you hearing from workers out there
in America today about what unions are doing to keep
them locked inside union agreements.
Speaker 2: Sure, let's feel was introduced. We had two workers actually
speak out. Terry Bowman, who full disclosure, he's board chair
of Institute for the American Worker.
Speaker 3: He is currently a worker.
Speaker 2: On the line at Ford Now, an established union that's
been there for decades. He talked about how the Employee
Rights Act would help him have those political protections, have
those privacy protections. And then on the other end of
the spectrum, we also had visiting fellow with us, a
man named Michael Alcorn, who is a Trader Joe's employee
who was actually the face leading the push against the
Trader Joe's unionization in Massachusetts. Talked about, you know, some
of the misinformation and the lack of rights that him
and his co workers felt when the union tried to
organize his store, and then the problems with the National
Labor Relations Board under the Biden administration that when they
try to decertify the union, all the roadblocks that were
put up in the prevention from actually leaving the union.
Speaker 3: So, you know, we're hearing.
Speaker 2: From workers across the country on you know, different parts
of the Employee Rights Act and how it would help them,
both workers in establish unions and workers that you want
to remain union free, and even workers that say, hey,
unions are doing a good job, but we deserve more protections.
Speaker 3: Than they could do better, and that's what the ERA does.
Speaker 1: Now to the other side of this question, of course,
you will hear from Democrats in particular and from big
labor that legislation like this could threaten the existence of unions,
could threaten how unions conduct themselves and perform and the
sorts of things that sustain them. What say you to that.
Speaker 2: Ploy writes at one hundred percent pro worker, and you
look at the different provisions. You know, you're talking privacy protections,
allowing workers to decide what piece of information the union
gets to contact them once again, the secret value union
organizing elections, protecting them against funding a union political agenda.
And frankly, this this bill would actually make union stronger
because then they would have to go back to their core,
which is representing workers, you know, and then going back
to them and saying you want us to be involved
in politics, Well, every year, tell us if you want
us to or not, and if you don't then we're
representing you and we're actually representing your interest as opposed
to what the union leadership wants.
Speaker 3: And it goes further, you know.
Speaker 2: It protects independent contractors' ability to work for themselves.
Speaker 3: It goes to a thing called joint.
Speaker 2: Employer, going back to a traditional standard where if you
have two, you have a corporation that owns a franchise
and then a small business that's the franchise or essentially
that mom and pop shop on your street corner. It
allows them to continue to exist and push back against
some of the overreach that we're seeing with the Democrat
proposals such as the pro Act or what we saw
on the buy An administration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely the pro Act, which Democrats pushed quite vigorously,
that was a clear and immediate threat to worker freedom
and worker rights. We have seen those kinds of pieces
of legislation over the years.
Speaker 3: What about the.
Speaker 1: Communication aspect of this? In organized labor unions, many have
been I think downright violates did some of the terms
of the laws in terms of communicating when agreements go
into place and that window of opportunity that a worker
would have to you know, get out of a union
and those sorts of things. Does does the e er
A bill does that deal with those kinds of things
as well?
Speaker 2: It protects the rights to a secret ballot, protects that
piece of personal information as far as the being able
to decertify. There are other good bills out there. There's
you know, hopefully we'll see movement when the National Labor
Relations Board has a quorum of you know, protecting those
workers that do want to opt out and giving them
more options and ratching.
Speaker 3: Back what's known as the contract.
Speaker 2: Bar or blocking charges that unions use to prevent workers
from exercising their rights.
Speaker 1: I see, uh, just the state of organized labor in
America today as you are following this that it's a
certainly a smaller percentage, dwindling percentage than we saw, you know,
back in the mid nineteen seventies and eighties. Much has changed,
of course over the years. Where does the strength of
organized labor stand today? What sort of new strategies are
they pushing to try to get around the laws on
the books right now? In organizing.
Speaker 2: Well, you said it, union membership has been falling for decades.
In twenty twenty four, which is the latest round of
numbers that we have it fell below ten percent. For
first time in the private sector, you are being less
than six percent of workers being union members. So it
really is a case of the unions have figured out
how to organize and represent workers kind of in the
Industrial Revolution in the nineteen thirties or turn of the century,
and they.
Speaker 3: Haven't really adapted.
Speaker 2: And I would say they should adapt to represent those
individual workers and be focused on individuals and instead of
this one size fits all of a serial model that's
outdated of collective bargaining right now.
Speaker 3: So you are seeing.
Speaker 2: Union membership drop off, and I think that's just because
they have.
Speaker 3: An outdated business model.
Speaker 2: And you know, if they did want to expand they
did want to improve, they have to modernize and they
have to embrace a lot of the concepts like we're
talking about here in the Employee Rights Act.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what it boils down to, doesn't it. I mean,
it should be a matter of choice, but in so
many circumstances big labor today, and it's been this way
for a long time, it is compulsory. And I think
that is exactly what the er legislation and others like
it tries to deal with the fact that for real
worker freedom in this country. Workers need to be able
to have a choice just like every other consumer out there.
Am I getting that straight from the bill?
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's one of the main things that we
want to see at I four AW.
Speaker 3: Is workers having a choice in a voice, having.
Speaker 2: The ability to say who they want to be represented by,
how they want their money spent, and how they want
to work. And I know we talked about it briefly
with the ERA, but the ability for an independent contractor
to work for themselves, not be considered an employee, small
business owner, to own a franchise, all those things are
core to what the flexibility and the entrepreneurship of the
modern worker, and those are the concepts that are embraced,
you know, not just on the union end of the
Employee Rights Act, but on the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit
and pro worker end of the ERA.
Speaker 4: We're at the worst level we've seen in thirty five years.
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Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and
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Speaker 3: Be informed.
Speaker 4: Check out the watch Dot on Wall Street podcast with
Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1: Were the Teamsters and the SEIU and other unions have
been fighting hard. They spend a lot of money on
some very high priced lawyers to fight, particularly that side
of things that you just mentioned. I really are going
after targeting that independent contractor market. What's the status on
some of the litigation. Is your organization dealing in this
area when it comes to contract employees or individual contractors?
Speaker 2: Well, thankfully the Department of Labor is now abandoning the
Biden administration's rule.
Speaker 3: That would have made it much harder.
Speaker 2: For workers to work for themselves and had very kind
of a MorphOS test. So you know, we're hopeful that
we'll see more proactive moves from DOL. Same thing with
the National Labor Relations Board once again. You know, they
had a ruling during the Biden administration called Atlanta opera
that you know, would get very close to, you know,
kind of the curtailments that we saw in California to
independent contractors, and you know, thankfully that is on ice
as well.
Speaker 3: And my hope is that.
Speaker 2: When there is a quorum at the NLRB, we could
see more proactive reversals of those type of decisions. On
our website, I the number four AW dot org I
for aw dot org.
Speaker 3: We actually have stories.
Speaker 2: From independent contractors from across the country and particularly in
California where there was a direct attack on independent contracting
and you know, the the you know, the benefits that
those workers had before those attacks, and you know the
detriments that they had afterwards. So you know, we really
here are hearing from real people that are affected by this,
that they want to work for themselves, but you have.
Speaker 3: These misguided laws that are harming them.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Vincent Bernuccio, president of the Institute
for the American Worker. We're discussing, among other things, the
Employee Rights Act of two thousand, twenty five. The legislation
seeks to modernize outdated federal labor laws to meet the
needs of today's workers. Executive orders you mentioned some of
the new direction that the Department of Labor in the
Trump administration is going. Obviously, it's much different than what
we saw the push for more compulsory organization efforts with
the Biden administration. What kind of executive orders have you
seen so far in the first five and a half
months or so of Trump two point zero assisting worker freedom?
Speaker 3: Sure, while a lot of.
Speaker 2: The executive orders and what we've seen have dealt mostly
with federal employees, such as President Trump's executive order that
said that if employees were working in agencies dealing with
national security, they should not be collectively bargaining because the
federal Civil Service.
Speaker 3: Laws gives him the ability to say, if it's.
Speaker 2: Notional security, there should not be a federal collective bargaining.
So we're seeing that, We're seeing agencies like the Office
of Personnel Management doing surveys saying how much is the
federal government spending on collective bargaining?
Speaker 3: How much are they spending on concepts known as official time?
And if you're not familiar with official time.
Speaker 2: It's essentially a federal employee doing union work while still
getting their tax payer funded salary to do their federal job,
but instead working some cases full time for the Union.
So President Trump and his first administration curtailed that to
a degree and also.
Speaker 3: Had more reporting on it.
Speaker 2: And I think we're, you know, via his executive orders
and some of the moves that we're seeing at OPM,
we might be seeing a repeat.
Speaker 3: Of that in this administration as well.
Speaker 1: Very interesting. You know, there's, like I said before, we're
talking about you know, almost century of movement, you know
that has been directed in favor of big labor in
America at a lot of turns. There have been some
key wins for individual worker rights, those who do not
want to be forced to be in labor organizations, some
very big victories in recent years, particularly on the healthcare side.
Where do things stand right now in terms of the
legal fight that's going on? The Supreme Court, as noted,
within the last several years, has weighed in a couple
of times with some very important decisions. What sort of
cases are you monitoring looking at that may be coming
before this court in the coming years.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, there's a lot of cases that are coming
after the jen versus Ask Me decision. I think that's
probably when it comes to labor, one of the most
seminal decisions of our generation, where the Supreme Court said
that pretty much everything that government unions do is political.
Speaker 3: So just think, if you are.
Speaker 2: Negotiating over salaries, what is that. That's taxpayer money. If
they are negotiating over the length of a school day,
what is that? That is public policy. So the Supreme
Court in this Janics case said that really everything that
government unions are doing is political, and therefore public employees
have a First Amendment right to choose whether or not to.
Speaker 3: Play to pay a union.
Speaker 2: So essentially, this Jane's decision that is a number of
years old at this point, brought right to work to
the entire public sector. That's why a lot of what
we're talking about now, when you're talking about right to work,
it's only private sector employees because thanks to the Supreme Court,
thanks to the First Amendment, and thanks to the Janice decision,
public employees across the country have those rights already.
Speaker 1: What is interesting to me is the history of this.
Speaker 3: If you look.
Speaker 1: At some of the original pioneers, if you will, of
the organized labor movement in this country, If you look
at the first president, arguably who really was on the
side of unions, Franklin Delana Roosevelt. They may have been
supportive for expanded union authority union rights, but they were
dead set against organized labor within the government, within the
government sector. That obviously has changed over the years, and
as we mentioned before, President Trump is looking to go
back oddly enough to the FDR con in many ways
that there should be definitely some limits on organized labor
in the federal government. Where do you see that issue going.
Speaker 2: That's right, Well, you know, FDR, you know, the champion
of the working man, and you know some say, you know,
very good friend of labor. You know, he said that
it's impossible to collectively bargain with the government, that you know,
that advisarial process that is in the private CECRIC can't be.
Speaker 3: Transplanted into the public sector. And you know, you are
seeing moves from the.
Speaker 2: Trump administration, uh, you know, with those National Security Executive
Orders and others saying that, yeah, that public employees should
be working for the tax payer, and that, you know,
especially when it comes to national security, which the president absolutely.
Speaker 3: Has the right.
Speaker 2: The law is very clear when it comes to national security.
The ability to say, well, you know it's not in
the national interest, it's not in the national secure security
interest to have collective argaining.
Speaker 1: The US Supreme Court recently, at the end of its term,
ruled issued a very significant decision. I don't think it
has gotten enough attention at me. I think it certainly
needs more and actually involved immigration law decisions from lower courts.
But what the Supreme Court ultimately ruled was saying to
the lower courts and the federal system, you can't just
issue blanket injunctions from a district court level. There are
times when that is appropriate, but those times are very limited.
And I think about that case and how that ruling
would and should affect some lawsuits against the Trump administration
and the President's executive order, the removal, if you will,
well of some individuals in some key positions, including the
National Labor Relations Board. I'm curious where that litigation stands
in what the impact will be on that front from
the Supreme Court ruling.
Speaker 2: So President Trump fired one of the members of the
National Labor Relations Board, Gwen Wilcox, and that is ongoing litigation.
Speaker 3: We will see.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it sounds like from some of
the things that the Supreme Court has recently ruled.
Speaker 3: That you know, they may uphold the firing from the
Trump administration.
Speaker 2: And you know, it really should be said that this
kind of was the door was opened by the Biden administration,
which fired the General Council.
Speaker 3: So that was kind of the opening salvo.
Speaker 2: President Trump fired President Biden's General Council, but anyone further
and fired Gwen Wilcox, the NLRB member.
Speaker 3: So still go through courts. We're all watching to see
what happens there.
Speaker 2: And your guess is as good as mine.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is always the bottom line. We noted
it before, but union membership in this country has diminished
dramatically over the last two generations or so, under ten
percent now according to the last figures. Are well. It
seems to me that most Americans believe that if unions
still play an important role somewhere, that a lot of
Americans don't believe that unions are for them. Where do
you think the union movement stands right now? Facing those
realities once again?
Speaker 3: I think the union movement has to adapt.
Speaker 2: They're still stuck in this one size fits all adversarial
collective bargaining model. They have to adapt to the mine
and workforce, to the freedom and flexibility that individual workers want.
Their workers want to be treated as individuals. They want
to have a say in their contract. They don't want
to be forced into an organization against their will.
Speaker 3: And you know, I do think.
Speaker 2: That if unions adapt, they can thrive, they can expand
more workers will want to join.
Speaker 3: But they have to drop kind of the.
Speaker 2: Government granted crutches that they have now through federal labor law,
or that.
Speaker 3: Federal labor law has to be updated. But you know,
if that happens, I could.
Speaker 2: See a resurgence of unionization in America.
Speaker 3: But embracing freedom and embracing the individual.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's take a look at this at an
individual level. Say a worker is you know, is tired
of a union where the individual works, wants to get out,
finds that path extremely difficult, and believes that the union
is abusing the existing laws in place, or quite frankly,
what the union is doing is discriminatory to the employee
based upon current federal state laws on labor. What can
that person do? What's the recourse? Because not everybody you
know has access to you know, a sharp labor law
legal mind.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, I mean the good thing is if they
are in a right to work state, they don't have
to pay, but they're still stuck under that union contract.
If they and their coworkers.
Speaker 3: Want to get rid of the union, they can try
to decertify.
Speaker 2: Now, the only problem there is that usually decertification is
allowed only during narrow windows. And there's things that you know,
as you know I have heard from our visiting federal
fellow Michael Elkhorn, the roadblocks that unions can put up
to prevent workers from desertifying or removing the unied and
not even talking about not allowing the employer to assist
at all, or the employees to use the copy room
at a workplace, but things like blocking charges. You're saying, well,
the employer did something wrong, so therefore the employees should
not have the ability to exercise their rights or re
upping their contract, which then would put a freeze.
Speaker 3: On desertification for a number of years.
Speaker 2: So unfortunately, there's a lot of road blocks that is
incredibly difficult, and this once.
Speaker 3: Again is why we do need some sort of change
in federal law regulation to make it easier. But there
are avenues.
Speaker 1: I think that's an important point as well. We saw
the abuses of big labor during the Biden administration that
were countenanced by the Biden administration, encouraged by the Biden
administration in some cases the abuse of certainly the spirit,
if not the exact language of the laws. And you
had a labor Relations board that was well, it was
doing the bidding of a president who said campaigning that
he was, you know, in essence, the biggest friend that
big labor had ever known. So far in the Trump administration,
are you seeing more robust action from the administration in
going after unions that are truly abusing their the federal
laws and their their employees.
Speaker 3: I think we're all waiting to see what happens.
Speaker 2: So the agency that does a lot of that is
the National Labor Relations Board, and I think a lot
of people are waiting with baited breadth for the NLRB
to have a quorum. President Trump has nominated a woman
named Crystal Carey to be general the General Counsel of
the NLRB. Unfortunately, she is stuck in her confirmation process
in the Senate. So hopefully the NLRB will have a
general Council soon and then soon after a full quorum
on the NLRB that we'll be able to make.
Speaker 3: Sure that workers are protected.
Speaker 1: President Trump. As candidate, Trump of course campaigned on worker
rights for sure, but he also did something that a
lot of Republicans have not done. He courted organized labor.
Do you see that ultimately as a positive for worker rights,
worker protections from the excesses and abuses of unions, or
do you see that perhaps as problematic moving forward?
Speaker 2: You know, I think there are definitely positives, you know,
working with unions to protect workers, but there's also negatives,
and you know, on the negative side, I think you
go to the other extreme. You look at people like
Senator Josh Hawley, who is borrowing multiple ideas and concepts
from the union wish lists legislation that you know, most
Democrats support the pro Act.
Speaker 3: As we were talking about before.
Speaker 2: Senator Hawley released a framework that had multiple concepts borrowed
directly from the pro Act. Has introduced a bill called
the Fast Labor Contracts Act that would force finding arbitration,
have the federal government force arbitration on a private business
and a union if they don't reach your first contract
in time, and that arbitration panel could essentially write a
contract for workers even against their will or against their
employers will.
Speaker 3: So you know, we are seeing the.
Speaker 2: Rise of what I'm calling the union curious conservatives like
Cenator Hawley, and for.
Speaker 3: What they are doing, you know, I think there are
issues there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's leads us to I think a good question
that I think are our listeners would ask as well,
why why is Josh Howley not only courting but working
beside big labor on some things that conservatives have found
quite questionable over the years. And again, as you mentioned,
he's not alone. Why why is this happening now?
Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, some repubmpkins and then once
again it is a very very small minority. But you know,
they made me misguided for why Holly is doing it
that that's a question directly for him.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, no, I certainly understand. But I'm just wondering
what the political gain is from doing this sort of thing,
and you know, putting and lobbying for things that come
out of the Proact that are absolutely anti worker freedom,
absolutely anti individual rights in the workplace when it comes
to these sorts of things, Well, tell me a bit
if you wouldn't mind about the Institute for the American Worker.
Obviously you are engaged in the fight for worker freedom,
but tell us more about your mission and what you do.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so you know, we have worker freedom as the
center of I for a w all of this, and
you can learn more about the Employee Rights Act and
some of the regulations and other laws that we were
talking about on our website. It's i the number four
AW dot org IFO AW dot org. We actually also
have a website called Labor News Today that you can
access from IFOW dot org that gives you the latest
and greatest in labor news.
Speaker 3: And if you just can get enough of it, you
can sign up for a daily.
Speaker 2: Digest that will put all the great labor stories in
your inbox first thing in the morning. I know people
from all over the country pay attention to it. You
have to be kind of a real labor geek, but
if you are, it's an incredibly useful newsletter.
Speaker 1: There you go, labor geeks, you heard it here thanks
to my guest today, Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute
for the American Worker. You've been listening to another edition
of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections
correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, stay levers of freedom and anxious for the
fray