➤ WORKERS, from p.5
for delivering results.
Appelbaum, fresh off a victory in
organizing employees at the AIDS
housing and service group Housing
Works, also pointed to his union’s efforts
to organize workers at an Amazon
fulfi llment plant in Alabama.
“The Amazon fi ght energizes
me,” he said. “Amazon is transforming
industry after industry,
and we have no choice but to take
on this fi ght. The work there is dehumanizing.
Workers get their assignments
from robots, they are
monitored by apps, and can be
fi red by text.”
The key question about the PRO
Act for the administration, Murray
in the Senate, and labor advocates
is whether 60 votes can be found
to overcome a fi libuster by Republican
opponents. Carroll noted
labor’s longstanding tradition of
supporting candidates on both
sides of the aisle in the knowledge
that Republican as well as Democratic
votes are typically needed to
ensure victory. He acknowledged,
however, “In this age of Trump, it
is a very different landscape.”
In the face of extreme partisan
polarization, he said, “I would
like to see what labor’s analysis is
about whether they could win 10
or 11 Republican votes.”
Davis was not upbeat about that
possibility. Though at least two
Democrats — Arizona’s out LGBTQ
Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s
Joe Manchin — have fi rmly
rejected the idea of eliminating the
fi libuster altogether and thereby
sidestepping the 60 vote requirement,
Davis suggested they could
be brought around if Republicans
repeatedly stonewall key Biden initiatives.
(The COVID relief package
seems headed for passage through
the arcane budget reconciliation
process that requires a simple majority
that would include Vice President
Harris as the tie-breaker.)
“It’s easier to fi nd two votes to kill
the fi libuster than 10 GOP votes to
pass PRO Act,” Davis said.
Carroll would not preclude the
possibility of enacting the measure
on a bipartisan push bringing in
60 or more votes, but said, “Biden
would have to commit to a 100-percent
focus, with all the prestige of
the White House brought to bear.”
His faith, it seems, is based in part
on his assessment that Biden is
the most pro-labor president since
John F. Kennedy.
Strikingly, Carroll and Davis
agreed that winning passage of the
$15 federal minimum wage — assuming,
as seems likely, that the
Senate parliamentarian will disallow
its inclusion in the COVID relief
measure under budget reconciliation
rules — could be an easier
bipartisan lift.
“There might be 10 Republicans
out there who support the minimum
wage increase,” Davis said.
Carroll pointed to the proposal’s
strong public support as shown in
polling and the clear evidence that
a substantial boost in the minimum
wage raises living standards.
“That’s powerful information,”
he said.
The main risk in trying to woo
Republican support, Carroll said,
is that it might involve extending
the phase-in period for the increase
— at a time when some economists
and labor advocates on the left are
already saying that $15 is insuffi -
cient. Phasing in an increase over
six years would allow infl ation to
bite into both the improvements in
living standards and the multiplier
effect of the lowest income Americans
having more money to plow
back into the economy.
Another key element affecting
the ability of American workers
to stand up for their rights is the
growing use of binding arbitration
by corporations to force employees
to settle complaints in a process
devised by the employer rather
than being able to seek redress in
the courts. Binding arbitration has
long been a factor in organized labor
disputes, but the terms of such
arbitration are hashed out on behalf
of workers by their union negotiators.
But binding arbitration
when forced on non-unionized employees
is typically the product of
a system devised by corporations,
without input from their employees.
The American Civil Liberties
Union points to statistics estimating
that the practice already impacts
more 60 million US employees
— a number expected to grow
to more than 85 million by 2024.
The ACLU, describing binding arbitration
as “slamming the courthouse
doors in the face of victims
of workplace harassment and discrimination,”
cites statistics showing
that the practice discourages
workplace complaints, is less likely
to result in a favorable verdict for
a worker complaining, and even
when a worker prevails yields a
less generous settlement.
Terri Gerstein, director of the
State and Local Enforcement Project
at Harvard Law School’s Labor
and Worklife Program, wrote
in the New York Times about Big
Tech companies several years ago
waiving their binding arbitration
regulations on sexual harassment
claims in the face of the #MeToo
movement, but argued that other
forms of harassment and discrimination
remained straightjacketed
by binding arbitration requirements.
Since 2019, Senator Murray and
House Democrats Jerry Nadler of
New York and Bobby Scott of Virginia
have sponsored the Restoring
Justice for Workers Act, while
Georgia Democratic Representative
Hank Johnson and Connecticut
Democratic Senator Richard
Blumenthal are pushing the
Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal
or FAIR Act, both aimed at curtailing
forced binding arbitration. The
concept is one Biden is also on the
record in favor of.
The arbitration issue is an important
factor to consider as Oregon
Senator Jeff Merkley and out
gay Rhode Island Representative
David Cicilline this past week,
with Biden’s support, reintroduced
the Equality Act, which would extend
the nondiscrimination protections
of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act and similar legislation that
followed — involving employment,
housing, public accommodations,
access to credit, and educational
institutions — to complaints based
on sexual orientation and gender
identity. The measure would codify
the Supreme Court victory on employment
discrimination resulting
from last June’s ruling in Bostock
v. Clayton County, Georgia — and
vastly broaden its purview.
Like some many other Biden initiatives,
the legislative strategy regarding
the need for 60 votes in the
Senate will be a critical factor. Any
resolution — or lack of — on the
binding arbitration issue, however,
will also be an enormous factor in
what teeth Bostock and the Equality
Act can bring to protecting LGBTQ
workers.
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