Appointed a LIUNA member to lead the Department of Labor and acted aggressively to protect workers
President Biden appointed card-carrying Laborer, Marty Walsh, to lead the US Department of Labor, as well as appointing Laborer Jessica Looman to head the DOL Wage and Hour Division.
Under Marty’s leadership and with the President’s support, the DOL is aggressively enforcing prevailing wage laws and ensuring that construction workers are not short-changed of their hard-earned pay.
DOL has also proposed a historic update to protect and strengthen Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rules which will modernize the process for setting wages to strengthen the wage floor and return to the more fair and accurate three-step method in setting wages (a wage rate will be considered prevailing if it was paid to at least 30 percent of workers)
Tough on union-busting employers and contractors who steal wages
The Biden Administration is cracking down on employers bargaining in bad faith back to the negotiating table.
He plans to implement a debarment policy for union-busters and employers who violate labor standards or engage in wage theft.
President Biden empowered OSHA to improve jobsite safety by reinstating critical protections eliminated under the Trump Administration, improving workplace injury reporting and expanding investigation and safety enforcement efforts.
Mandated worker-friendly PLAs on federal projects
President Biden issued an Executive Order requiring project labor agreements (PLAs) on feder-al infrastructure projects. The PLA requirement will help LIUNA members and all workers both union and non-union by setting good wages, promoting strong health and safety standards, and ensuring that large-scale federal projects are completed on time and with the highest degree of quality and efficiency.
Acted on union rights and protected and restored the rights of federal workers and U.S. postal workers
President Biden adopted as official policy that the federal government should encourage union organizing and collective bargaining.
He reversed Trump’s attacks on the U.S. Postal System, protecting the rights of postal workers and reinstated the ability of federal employees to collectively bargain.
He rolled back the Trump policy which stripped federal workers of their union representation and made it easier to fire federal employees without “just cause.”
The Biden-Harris Administration implemented the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment , which released a report with nearly 70 recommendations to promote worker organizing for federal employees, and for workers employed by public and private-sector employers. The recommendations include ways to increase private sector workers’ access to information on their existing right to join and/or organize a union and how to do so. The report also recommends creating preferences in federal grant and loan programs for employers with strong labor standards.
Raised wages for federal workers and LIUNA service contract workers
Thousands of LIUNA members working under service contracts for the federal government, including many supporting the U.S. military, will benefit from a new $15 per hour wage floor ordered by the Biden Administration. The wage will also be indexed to inflation, so that every year after 2022, wages will be automatically adjusted to reflect changes in the cost of living.
The Administration also increased the minimum wage for federal workers from a low of $7.25 to $15 an hour.