News - BREAKING NEWS: We need your help! - Labor Dept Funding Legislation

BREAKING NEWS: We need your help! - Labor Dept Funding Legislation

Nov 9

Written by:
11/9/2011

A request from Tom Delaney, Director of Government Affairs at PLANET.

Hi All

I am asking you to consider contacting key legislators to urge your support of important policy provisions contained within the draft bill funding the Labor Department for the next fiscal year.

Your Help Needed:

While we are pleased that these priorities, described below, have been included within the bill, this is just the first step toward enacting any of them. For such a provision to be adopted, ultimately both the House and Senate will need to approve them in legislation that is sent to the President. Obviously, this will be an uphill battle and, while not impossible, the window of opportunity is now small. The likelihood of any of these provisions making it into final legislation will be strengthened if the Subcommittee meets and approves the draft legislation. Consequently, we encourage you to communicate your support for these provisions to all Members of Congress, but in particular to the Republicans on the House Labor-HHS Appropriation Subcommittee.

Those members are:

Rep. Denny Rehberg (MT), Chairman (note that as Chairman, Rep. Rehberg is largely responsible for the draft bill, so communications with him should be more along the lines of thanking him for his leadership) Rep. Jerry Lewis (CA-41) Rep. Rodney Alexander (LA-05) Rep. Jack Kingston (GA-01) Rep. Kay Granger (TX-12) Rep. Mike Simpson (ID-02) Rep. Jeff Flake (AZ-06) Rep. Cynthia Lummis (WY)

Background:

Enacting any legislative initiatives to rein-in overactive government agencies, such as the Labor Department and National Labor Relations Board, will be exceedingly difficult given the political makeup of both the House and Senate. Nevertheless, there are small windows of opportunity to achieve these kinds of legislative victories. The appropriations process funding the government for the next fiscal year presents one such opportunity. For example, during the Clinton Administration, Congress was successful in enacting funding limitations on rulemakings, such as one before the NLRB dealing with presumptively valid bargaining units and, for a time, limiting the Labor Department’s ability to move forward on ergonomics regulations.

Draft Legislation

Today, the House Appropriations Subcommittee responsible for legislation funding the Labor Department, NLRB, and various other agencies made public its draft bill. I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know about some important provisions included in this draft. These provisions include:

Department of Labor (pages 2-38):

Specific funding limitations include:

Section 111 – prohibits implementing, administering, or enforcing the final regulations relating to the use of Project Labor Agreements for federal construction projects Section 112 - prohibits administering, implementing, or promoting DOL’s ‘‘Bridge to Justice’’ program that refers individuals with complaints relating to employment violations to private attorneys Section 113 - prohibits the development of or promulgation of the FLSA “Right to Know” regulation being developed by DOL Section 114 – prohibits the development of or promulgation of the DOL’s proposed “persuader” regulation Section 118 - prohibits the development of or promulgation of the DOL’s H-2B Wage Methodology regulation Section 119 – prohibits the development of or promulgation of the MSD column reporting regulation being developed by OSHA Section 120 - prohibits the development of or promulgation of the Injury and Illness Prevention Program (I2P2) regulation being developed by OSHA Section 123 – prohibiting funds used to initiate, administer, promulgate, or enforce any ‘‘significant regulatory action’’ unless DOL provides 30 days notice to House and Senate Appropriations committee

In addition, section 110 amends the Davis-Bacon provisions of the U.S. Code to require the Secretary of Labor to use Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys in establishing prevailing wages utilizing sound statistical sampling techniques.

The text of the bill may be accessed here:

http://appropriations.house.gov/UploadedFiles/FY_2012_Final_LHHSE.pdf

Tom Delaney
Director of Government Affairs

Professional Landcare Network

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H-2B Alert Update

LandcareNetwork.org

July 1, 2011

Federal court rules new H-2B Wage Rule, effective October 1, 2011

On June 15, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued a ruling that invalidated the January 1, 2012, effective date of the Wage Rule and ordered the Department of Labor (DOL) to announce a new effective date for the rule within 45 days from June 15. The basis for the court’s ruling was twofold: (1) that the almost one-year delay in the effective date was not a “logical outgrowth” of the proposed rule, and therefore was in violation; and (2) that the DOL was wrong in considering hardship to employers when deciding to delay the effective date.

The DOL proposes that the Wage Rule take effect 60 days from the date of publication of a final rule resulting from this rulemaking. It anticipates the date of publication of the final rule to be on or about August 1, 2011; thus, the effective date of the Wage Rule would be on or about October 1, 2011. The Wage Rule will be effective for wages paid to H-2B workers and U.S. workers recruited in connection with an H-2B labor certification for all work performed on or after the new effective date. A 60-day delayed effective date also would provide the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) within the DOL with the time it needs to implement the wage rule, as the OFLC must issue new prevailing wages for approved work performed on or after the new effective date.

In order to accomplish this, the OFLC must identify all certified H-2B applications that contain dates of work to be performed on and after the new effective date of the Wage Rule. This universe of certifications must then be issued new prevailing wage determinations in accordance with the Wage Rule’s methodology. This is a labor-intensive activity, as the OFLC will have to determine and issue the new determinations before the new effective date proposed in this rulemaking for each of these employers. OFLC has determined the universe of applications to be large, and therefore will require the 60-day delayed effective date in order to complete this task.

PLANET recently sent more than 3,500 postcards to all users of the H-2B program, asking them to contact their members of Congress through the PLANET Web site. We were very disappointed with the response. The simple fact is that if you do not contact your representative and senators, they will not do anything to help.

PLANET continues to work with other associations representing industries that rely on the program. However, our industry is the biggest user of the program and must therefore take the major part of the grassroots action. If PLANET members do not use PLANET’s Legislative Action Center to send letters to the Hill, this program may be rendered completely useless for the foreseeable future. We also encourage you to attend Legislative Day on the Hill and go with other members of your state to the Hill with request for help.

Tom Delaney
Director of Government Affairs
Professional Landcare Network (PLANET)
(800) 395-2522

Professional Landcare Network (PLANET)
950 Herndon Parkway, Suite 450
Herndon, VA 20170
(800) 395-2522 . Fax (703) 736-9668 . LandcareNetwork.org
The association of members who create and maintain the QUALITY OF LIFE in communities across America.