Beautiful trifecta: New Labor Department rule great for workers, great for employers, bad for Obama

Workers and businesses are thriving under the Trump economy. Friday's jobs report heralded nearly 200,000 new jobs, and the unemployment rate is an incredibly low 3.8%. The newest Department of Labor proposed rule should help workers and businesses even more and remove another Obama labor legacy.

The Department of Labor just announced this week a new rule for joint employer regulation. Joint employers exist when workers have two employers who control their work schedules, wages, or hiring. For example, a company could request workers from a staffing agency, but the company controls the pay and work schedules of the employees. If two employers are joint employers, both companies could be sued for minimum wage and overtime violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Liberals have been trying to expand the definition of joint employer for years and hold more businesses liable for indirect violations, which has created confusion and cost jobs and revenue.

Employers have been confused about who is a joint employer since Jan. 20, 2016, when the Department of Labor under President Barack Obama issued an administrator’s interpretation. Unlike the new proposed rule, the AI was not rule-making and did not have a notice and comment period. The administrator’s interpretation broadly defined joint employer.

However, Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta announced on June 7, 2017, the withdrawal of the 2016 administrator’s interpretation. Now, the Department of Labor has issued a new proposed rule, which introduces a clear four-question test that ends the confusion and reduces the number of lawsuits. The new rule also includes examples to help courts, employers, and workers determine who is a joint employer. For example, two restaurants that are part of the same franchise are not joint employers if they are managed by different franchisees. However, the restaurants could become joint employers if the restaurants coordinate on the worker’s schedule and jointly decide the terms and conditions of employment, e.g. pay rate. As Acosta correctly says.

Interestingly, this DOL proposed rule follows the announcement of the National Labor Relations Board’s new proposed rule on joint employer under the National Labor Relations Act. The NLRB made this announcement on Sept. 13, 2018. The NLRB proposed a new rule in 2018 because the NLRB under Obama had expanded the definition of joint employer as well. The American Action Forum had estimated that the Obama-era NLRB rule would result in 1.7 million fewer jobs. If implemented, both rules will have a large and positive impact on the economy. These rules would primarily affect franchises, and there are more than 733,000 franchises in the United States. This business model has created 7.6 million jobs and indirectly supported 13.3 million jobs. In addition, franchises directly account for $404.6 billion in GDP and indirectly account for $925.9 billion. While the Obama administration tried to limit the franchise business model, the Trump administration welcomes the jobs and revenue they create.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beautiful-trifecta-new-labor-department-rule-great-for-workers-great-for-employers-bad-for-obama

Minnesota House votes to allow driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants

The Minnesota House voted Friday to allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses, setting the stage for a confrontation with the GOP-controlled state Senate. The 74-52 vote marked a victory for the state Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) Party and Gov. Tim Walz (D), who prioritized the issue for the legislative session, the Star Tribune reported. Two Republicans in the state House voted for the bill, while two DFLers opposed it. Some Republicans in the state's upper chamber say the bill welcomes undocumented immigration and could lead to voter fraud in the state.

“Immigrants, whether they are documented or undocumented, are Minnesotans. They are part of the fabric of our communities,” said House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler (D), according to the paper. “It is time that we helped take away this shadow of not having a driver’s license.” “Minnesota shouldn’t be in the business of incentivizing illegal behavior, and by allowing illegal and undocumented immigrants access to driver’s licenses, that’s exactly what our state would be doing,” state Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen (R) contended.

To assuage Republican concerns, Democrats included a stipulation in the legislation mandating the licenses would carry explicit warnings that they cannot be used for proof of identification at polling stations. Minnesota has no photo ID requirements at polling stations.

Should the legislation survive the GOP-controlled Senate and secure Walz's signature, Minnesota would become the 13th state to give licenses to residents who cannot provide proof of their legal status. Immigrants used to be able to get a driver’s license regardless of their legal status in Minnesota until 2003, when the law was changed in light of post-9/11 security concerns, the Star Tribune noted.

Proponents of the bill said it will help restore the opportunity for undocumented migrants to live productive lives in the state. “It’s common sense,” Rep. Samantha Vang (D) told the Star Tribune. “This will allow people to simply open a bank account, to drive safely on the road to their jobs, to their school.” “This is about dignity, it is about respect, it is about inclusion,” Rep. Mohamud Noor, a refugee from Somalia, added.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/437701-minnesota-house-votes-to-allow-drivers-licenses-for-undocumented

Obama: I worry progressives may undercut Democratic allies

Former President Obama expressed concern about the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, saying he feared it could end up undercutting allies. Speaking at a town hall event on Saturday for the Obama Foundation in Berlin, the former president spoke about the need for compromise in politics, citing the Affordable Care Act as something that he said signified progress even though it did not achieve all of his aspirations for U.S. health care.

"One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States —maybe it’s true here as well — is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, 'Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be,' and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a 'circular firing squad,' where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens," he said. "So I think whether you are speaking as a citizen or as a political leader or as an organizer … you have to recognize that the way we structure democracy requires you to take into account people who don’t agree with you, and that by definition means you’re not going to get 100 percent of what you want," he added.

Obama, who began his career in politics as a community organizer in Chicago before becoming an Illinois state senator and, later, a U.S. senator, recounted the frustration he felt when politicians told him they could not deliver as much progress on an issue as he would like. Still, Obama said his perspective has changed throughout his political career.

"You should take some time to think in your own mind and continually refine and reflect, 'What are my core principles?' Because the danger is if you don’t know what your principles are, that’s when you compromise your principles away," he said. "You can’t set up a system in which you don't compromise on anything, but you also can’t operate in a system where you compromise on everything."

Obama's remarks come as over a dozen Democrats vie for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination. Some candidates have angled to appeal to the party's burgeoning progressive wing that has garnered a reputation for criticizing politicians who, some say, have not taken bold enough steps to enact change.

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/437692-obama-im-worried-progressives-may-form-a-circular-firing-squad

>>6073928 >>6074008

TSA reminds travelers of REAL ID identification requirements

>https://www.tsa.gov/news/releases/2019/04/04/tsa-reminds-travelers-real-id-identification-requirements

>>6074193

That was the signal I took from this as well.

>>6074223

Worse than that he is a traitor…his presidency should be abolished..

>>6074261

Nice, Thank you!

Candace Owens to testify in congressional hearing on hate crimes and white nationalism

Candace Owens, a popular African-American conservative activist, will testify before the House Judiciary Committee next week during a hearing on hate crimes and white nationalism. Owens, communications director for Talking Point USA, will join Eileen Hershenov, the senior vice president for policy at the Anti-Defamation League; Eva Paterson, president of the Equal Justice Society; and Neil Potts, public policy director of Facebook, among others for the hearing Tuesday. “This hearing will examine hate crimes, the impact white nationalist groups have on American communities and the spread of white identity ideology. The hearing will also foster ideas about what social media companies can do to stem white nationalist propaganda and hate speech online,” the committee said in a statement.

Owens rose to national prominence by garnering a large social media following, promoting her idea that the Democratic Party takes black voters for granted and that they should leave the party in a “Blexit,” a play on words of Brexit. She has increasingly found herself in the Republican mainstream, appearing in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where President Trump as well as a string of Republican senators and administration officials also spoke.

Owens drew criticism online in February when she said it would have been “OK” if Adolf Hitler wanted to keep his activities to Germany. “If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well — OK, fine,” she said after she was asked about the word “nationalism.” “The problem is he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German,” she said. Owens took to Twitter to defend her comments, saying “Nationalism is sort of conflated with, for some reason, Hitler. …That’s really, really wrong and we have to almost correct the record on that.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/437658-candace-owens-to-testify-in-congressional-hearing-on-hate-crimes-and-white

>>6074381

It should be interesting…I am sure we have not heard the last of this.