In Case You Missed It, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) joined host Peter List on Labor Relations Radio. In the discussion, Chairwoman Foxx highlighted the Committee’s work to strengthen the workforce and push back against Big Labor and the Biden administration’s job-killing regulations. Excerpts from the interview are below:
On Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su being the “Forever Nominee”:
“[Su] should not be continuing in that role without having been voted on by the Senate. What that’s doing is depriving Congress of its role in providing advice and consent on nominees.”
“On July 20, 2023, Julie Su became the longest pending cabinet nominee, when the same party controls the White House and the Senate, on record. The press has dubbed Su Biden's ‘forever nominee.’”
“Julie Su is not a pro-worker bureaucrat. She’s an anti-worker bureaucrat.”
On supporting independent contractors:
“My father was an independent contractor. I am a huge proponent of people being able to make that decision for their lifestyle and their work. But what the president wants to do, and what Julie Su wants to do, is control people. They do not want independent contractors to be allowed to operate. They want people to be part of a big business and then be unionized.”
“People can see what happened in California on this. It got so bad, with the backlash from various professionals, that the California legislature had to exempt 100 different professions from the AB 5 law.”
On opposition to the PRO Act:
“The legislation is bad. … It actually did pass out of the House three years ago. … Even though the Senate has been controlled by the Democrats, they could not bring it up for a vote—just like they could not bring Julie Su's nomination up for a vote—because there just are not the votes for it in the Senate.”
“I just do not believe it will become law anytime soon, at least I pray.”
On the Committee’s investigation into the NLRB’s misconduct:
“What we discoveredwere dozens of instances of misconduct related to the NLRB's use of mail ballots in representation election cases.”
“The NLRB was established to function as an impartial agency that conducts representation elections in adjudications disputes, under the National Labor Relations Act. It is not supposed to act as a rogue organization that puts its thumb on the scale. But that's exactly what it's been doing.”
On the Committee exposing a Workers United “salt”:
“You all reported that Workers United paid nearly $2.5 million to salts and activists at Starbucks. I sent a letterto Workers United International President Lynne Fox…to request information about Michelle Eisen’s employment and compensation history with the union, and whether it coincided with her testifying as a Starbucks barista at a committee hearing in September 2022… She represented herself exclusively as a Starbucks barista.”
“We applied pressureon Workers United. It took a while to get this information from them. … [Eisen] was indeed a salt for the union. They hired her as a paid organizer in February of 2022, months before she testified before the Committee, and they continue to pay her to this day.”
“[Eisen] misled the Committee blatantly during the hearing and stood up for the unions—not the way it's supposed to be.”
On Big Labor’s impact on the workforce:
“There is a full-on assault [under the Biden administration], to make the unions dominant. … It would be one of the worst things that could possibly happen in this country, for the unions to gain any more traction.”
“We will not advance as a country and as an economic power with the unions more in control. And by the way, we’ve talked nothing at all today about the corruption of the unions and the union bosses. I think [workers have] been sold a bill of goods."
