Coalition For A Democratic Workplace Oppose Budget Reconciliation Labor Provisions

As Connecting the Dots has reported, the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation that U.S. House and Senate leaders are hoping to bring up for a vote this fall would radically alter federal labor and employment policy. Specifically, the bill includes:

• Excessive civil monetary penalties for any and all violations of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA);
• Personal liability for NLRA violations for company directors and officers;
• Creation of new violations of the NLRA;
• Union neutrality requirements for direct care grants; and
• Funding for electronic voting systems in union elections.

On October 4, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, which MSCI is a member, sent a letter to all members of Congress outlining the coalition’s opposition to these policies. In addition to discussing the negative ramifications of each policy, the letter, available here, said, “These provisions are significant, substantive policy changes and are therefore inappropriate for inclusion in the reconciliation bill. Reconciliation bills are intended to focus on items with budgetary effect and are not intended to radically change policy through measures that merely produce an incidental budgetary effect.”