Paid leave’s piecemeal path forward

Mar 25, 2024

QUICK FIX

POWERING PAID LEAVE: After congressional Democrats slashed paid leave from their final reconciliation bill two years ago, most expected a divided Congress to focus mostly on messaging. Advocates shifted their attention to state legislatures and the upcoming election, while the White House accepted its relegation to the bully pulpit. Most recently, Biden referenced paid leave during his State of the Union address before including it in his fiscal 2025 budget request.

Some lawmakers, however, are powering ahead.

A bipartisan House working group led by Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) and Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) is mapping out possible avenues for enacting chunks of its recently announced legislative proposal, a senior legislative staffer directly involved told Weekly Shift. An expansion of tax credits for employers who offer paid leave benefits could go in a future tax package. A pilot program that helps states implement their own policies might be enacted as part of future appropriations legislation.

With the government now funded through September and negotiations over the current tax package at an impasse, neither conversation is likely to happen until after the election. Nonetheless, their inception reflects greater legislative momentum than most had anticipated after moderate Democrat and Republican concerns capsized talk of a federal program.

“We are now at a point where there is very serious discussion about paid family and medical leave, and how we can try to move forward,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and long-time sponsor of a bill that would provide all workers with 12 weeks of paid leave, told Weekly Shift. She added that she is “in close contact with” the working group.

Right now, its members are in the process of drafting legislation to match their proposal, the staffer said. They’re simultaneously keeping tabs on responses to a request for information put out in December alongside Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.).

Without text, there are outstanding questions over how the state pilot program would work — including from DeLauro herself, who would hold some sway over whether the language makes it into appropriations legislation.

“I thought that the Department of Labor already provides grants to states to look at a paid family leave program,” DeLauro said.

And progressives and advocates say the tax credits in question have limited reach and mostly reimburse employers that would have offered the benefit anyway.. They point to IRS data that shows that only about 1,200 companies filed for the tax credit in 2020 — and that most of the money went to bigger employers.

“I don't think that is a policy that is expanding access to paid leave to more people,” Vicki Shabo, a senior fellow at New America, told Weekly Shift.

Yet Shabo and others express real optimism that the state pilot program, in particular, could help expand access to paid leave for more workers.

“I really think that states’ support could move the needle … depending on exactly what they were doing,” Sherry Leiwant, co-president of advocacy group A Better Balance, told Weekly Shift.

GOOD MORNING. It’s Monday, March 25. Welcome back to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on labor and employment-related immigration. Send feedback, tips and exclusives to nniedzwiadek@politico.com and gyarrow@politico.com. Follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @NickNiedz and @YarrowGrace.

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On the Hill

THE FOXX AND THE HOUND: The House workforce committee chair is losing patience with the Biden administration’s response to her demands for details about White House workplace safety precautions following a string of biting incidents by President Joe Biden’s dog, your host reports.

“As I stated in my prior letters, the White House should not embrace an attitude of ‘rules for thee, but not for me’ when it comes to workplace safety,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who heads the Education and the Workforce Committee, wrote in a letter to be sent Monday to acting Labor Secretary Julie Su.

Foxx has called on the DOL’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration to require the Executive Office of the President to adhere to federal safety programs consistent with OSHA standards.

CNN said in February that Biden’s dog Commander had bitten Secret Service personnel about 24 times. Foxx sent two letters to the Labor Department last fall regarding the dog bites, but was dissatisfied with the agency’s reply. Commander was removed from the White House.

The DOL told the committee in November that it did not have reports that Foxx was looking for and did not respond to Morning Shift’s request for comment in time for publication.

APPROPS WRAPPED: Thwarting a government shutdown and concluding a rocky funding cycle, President Joe Biden signed a colossal $1.2 trillion spending package on Saturday.

The Senate cleared the six-bill funding bundle in a 74-24 vote early Saturday morning, our colleagues reported, after House approval earlier on Friday. One of six bills in the minibus package was the Labor-HHS-Education, which cut funding for the Labor Department by $145 million from last fiscal year.

Labor sub-agencies like the NLRB and OSHA escaped negotiations with the similar allotments to fiscal 2023. Dozens of earmarks will fund millions of dollars in labor-related federal initiatives.

Around the Agencies

AGs FIGHT DOL: Attorneys general in 24 red states are pushing back against the Biden administration’s plan to bolster equity and diversity in the workforce through a revamped apprenticeship program, according to The Associated Press.

The Republican attorneys general submitted a public comment to the Labor Department, saying the agency’s update of the National Apprenticeship System rules is the same as race-based discrimination.

“The Proposed Rule deviates from the statutory purpose of safeguarding the welfare of apprentices and builds on existing regulations to further entrench an apprenticeship regime dedicated to picking winners and losers based on the color of apprentices’ skin,” the attorneys general wrote.

The DOL argues the proposed rewrite was intended to diversify on-the-job training opportunities for a more diverse group of workers. Last week the deadline for public comment on the rule.

In more agency news: “Commerce to consider labor, environment in anti-dumping probes,” from our Ari Hawkins.

In the Workplace

PA AG PUSH: As members of a new generation are opting for desk jobs, and the U.S. loses more farms, Pennsylvania is investing in young farmers and agriculture jobs — and seeing it pay off, our Marcia Brown reports.

Pennsylvania lawmakers have safeguarded more than 600,000 acres of farmland from commercial development since 1988 and passed a tax credit for young farmers. They also created a state farm bill in 2019 with a focus on workforce development.

The state could serve as a model for others as legislators and agricultural leaders are warning of a crisis for domestic food production and struggling to find future leaders for ag industries.

“We have a vision for Pennsylvania agriculture,” state Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding told Marcia. “We see an opportunity here and we're going to invest in that and hopefully we can make a compelling case that this is an industry worth investing in.”

IRS CLAWING BACK BOGUS CLAIMS: The IRS says it has recovered $225 million from more than 500 taxpayers through an initiative that allowed people who wrongly received the Employee Retention Credit to come clean, our Brian Faler reports.

That figure is likely to swell as hundreds more submissions are still being processed, the agency said. The initiative, which expired Friday, allowed those who haven't yet been audited to return 80 percent of the money without penalties or interest.

The IRS has assessed $572 million on 12,000 entities that improperly took the credit, Brian writes.

The Senate is teetering on a deal that would give the tax agency more authority to chase improperly claimed credits to bring in nearly $80 billion.

More workplace news from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals: “Ohio State STEM Student’s Employee Status Probed by 6th Cir.” from Bloomberg Law.

IN THE STATES

SELF-CHECKOUT STRAINS: A Los Angeles lawmaker wants to curb self-checkout at stores in California and conduct a statewide study of job losses caused by the technology, our Ariel Gans writes.

The bill, introduced by Democratic state Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, would limit how many self-checkout stations one employee can monitor at a time.

The end goal is to protect retail jobs from being replaced with smart technology, according to Smallwood-Cuevas, while addressing retail theft and understaffing, a preoccupation of both industry leaders and politicians.

In Florida news: “Gov. DeSantis signs bill allowing teens older than 16 work 30+ hours per week,” from the Florida Phoenix.

Unions

RECORD PAY RAISE: Workers got an average first-year wage increase of 6.6 percent due to union contracts negotiated in 2023, the highest average pay raise for a year in decades, according to an analysis from Bloomberg Law.

That data comes from Bloomberg Law’s tracking of about 2.8 million union-represented workers and the gains reported in 952 union contracts in 2023.

Since 2020, as union leaders call for companies to account for the cost-cutting strategies implemented during the pandemic, union-secured wages have surged. The 6.6 percent average pay raise in 2023 union contracts is more than double 2020’s average of 3.1 percent.

MAN OF STEEL: President Joe Biden’s decision to oppose the sale of U.S. Steel to a Japanese rival highlights the influence that a group of senators and their union allies continue to have in major trade and industrial policy decisions, our Gavin Bade reports.

The pro-union Biden administration has made some of its biggest trade policy moves after close consultations from organized labor leaders and Rust Belt Democrats in the Senate — including on issues like trade negotiations with Asian countries, tariff policies and the U.S. Steel sale.

The president’s announcement against the U.S. Steel sale came on the same day that Biden called the president of the powerful United Steelworkers union. Less than a week later, the union announced it would endorse Biden in the 2024 election.

The involvement of select senators and unions in policy choices, Gavin writes, reflect how intensely Democrats are focused on denting Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s economic message with workers in Midwestern states that could determine which party controls the Senate and the White House after November.

IMMIGRATION

VISA EXPANSION FOR FY24: The fiscal 2024 funding package signed by Biden over the weekend included several immigration-related extensions and updates.

A key update in the deal will allow the Department of Homeland Security secretary to increase the number of H-2B guest-worker visas available in fiscal 2024, according to a POLITICO Pro Bill Analysis.

As final negotiations were concluding, Biden demanded that talks pivot from a stopgap spending bill that would have stagnated the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for the rest of the year. In the end, DHS received a $1.1 billion discretionary funding bump over fiscal 2023 enacted levels — up to $61.8 billion.

More immigration news: “As its workers stream to the U.S., Mexico runs short of farmhands,” from The Washington Post.

WHAT WE'RE READING

— “Want to Know if AI Will Take Your Job? I Tried Using It to Replace Myself,” from The Wall Street Journal.

— “Furry Slippers and Sweatpants: Young Chinese Embrace ‘Gross Outfits’ at Work,” from The New York Times.

— “What the DOJ’s antitrust suit against Apple means for everyone with an iPhone,” from the Los Angeles Times.

THAT’S YOUR SHIFT!

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