Power point on "TPP". Trans- Pacific Parnership.

1. Teamsters Legislative Agenda
Presented By
Fred McLuckie
Director
Department of Federal Legislation and
Regulation

2. Does It Make a Difference Who’s in
Charge?
• Congressional Approval Rating – 11%
• All Politicians Are the Same
• Throw All the Bums Out!
• Don’t Worry – Be Happy!
• We Have a Backstop – the Democratic Senate and the WH
• Nothing Bad Can Happen. Right?

3. Surface Transportation Bill
• H.R. 7 (Written by Rs) • S. 1813 (Bipartisan bill)
– Eliminates transit funding stream – Keeps current HTF source
– Eliminates hazmat training
– “Buy American” loopholes – Provides broader range
– Abrogates CBAs – Strengthens “Buy American”
– Guarantees losses for private – No provision
contractor – No Provision
– Eliminates FLSA protections
– Displaces state employees – No provision
– Increases truck size/weights – No provision
– Makes permanent 5,000 hazmat – Two-year study
exemptions – No provision

4. Noteworthy Provisions
• Rulemaking for EOBRs
• Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse
• Buy American loopholes closed
• State Reporting of Foreign commercial driver convictions (cmv and
non-cmv)
• Teamster membership on MCSAC
• Expanded Hazmat training
• Scrutinizes Reincarnated Carriers
• Pre-Authority Safety Audits for Motor Coach companies

5. Mexican Truck Pilot Program
Business Address of MX Carrier

6. MX Truck Pilot Program
• Start Date – October 21, 2011
• First Carrier – Transporte Olympics ( 1t/2d)
• 33% OOS rate after 7 inspections/trips
• Total of 3 carriers (3 trucks/4 drivers)
• 17 MX carriers with pending operating authority – Must pass Pre-Authority
Safety Audit (PASA)
• Grupo Behr – violated operating authority – 6 mo. Suspension
• Reciprocity for U.S. Carriers???
• MX Trucks Won’t Meet Environmental Standards
• Lawsuit Pending – U.S. Court of Appeals – D.C. Circuit

7. Homeland Security Issues
Smuggling Drugs, Guns and Cash
• Agents Arrest Six in Drug Bust • Cocaine Seized From Tractor
- Charlotte, NC Worth $3.52m
• Port Officers Seize large cache • CBP Officers Seize Tractor
of Ammo Trailer Loaded With Marijuana
• Mexican Soldiers Seize Rig and • U.S. Updates Travel Warning
Drugs for Mexico
• In Mexico, 12,000 Killed in
Drug Violence in 2011

8. Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)
• Mega NAFTA-type trade deal
• Nine countries – Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New
Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam
• China, Russia, Indonesia, Japan, Canada and Mexico want in
• Negotiated in secret – but 600 corporate “advisors” have
access

9. TPP
• Most of text has nothing to do with trade
• Imposes limits on domestic food safety, health, environment and other
polices
• Contains a set of extreme foreign investor privileges and rights
• “Buy American” standards gone!
• Pharmaceutical patent rights extended
• Corporations can challenge any country’s laws that get in their way

10. TPP
• Strategy to defeat TPP:
– Slow down the negotiation process
– Peel back veil of secrecy
– Show how it impacts countries’ sovereignty
– Protests at negotiating rounds

11. Worker Misclassification Cheats Everyone
• Workers are cheated out of vital benefits and protections.
• Responsible employers are cheated out of business
opportunities.
• Federal and state governments are cheated out of billions of
dollars in needed revenue.

12. Recommendations to “Make it Right”
• Close the loophole: reform safe harbor provisions
in Section 530 of the IRC.
• Increase transparency and enforcement.
• Strengthen record-keeping requirement.
• Stronger penalties for willful misclassification.

13. Pursue a Two-Prong Approach
• Attack misclassification from the tax cheat angle (IRS).
– S.2145/ H.R. 4123 – Fair Playing Field Act of 2012
• Tackle the problem through robust labor law enforcement
(FLSA).
– S. 770 – Payroll Fraud Prevention Act
– H.R. 3178 – Employee Misclassification Prevention Act

14. The RESPECT Act (S. 2168)
• NLRA gives private sector workers the right to organize,
but excludes supervisors from coverage.
• The NLRA [sec.2 (11)] defines “supervisor” as a person
who has the authority to:
“hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge,
assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to
direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to
recommend such action, if …not of a merely routine or clerical
nature, but requires independent judgment.”

15. NLRB Acts to Significantly Expand Who is a
Supervisor
• October 2006, NLRB issued a decision on 3 cases, collectively known as Kentucky
River that significantly expands the number of workers who could be classified as
supervisors. (Kentucky River = Oakwood Healthcare, Crest Healthcare Center, Croft
Metals)
• Board relied heavily on 2 of the 12 criteria in the definition of supervisor – the
phrases “assign” and “responsibly to direct”. Dramatically expanded scope of these
terms.
• Board also held that worker who spends as little as 10% of his/her time in a
supervisory capacity could be deemed a supervisor.
• Sweeps those workers who exercise lone minor sporadic supervisory authority into a
dramatically expanded definition of who is a supervisor.

16. The RESPECT Act (S. 2168)
• S. 2168 makes 2 modest corrections to the NLRA to: (1) Restore the
law to original intent (2) Protect key workplace rights of employees
who are not and have never previously been viewed as supervisors.
• S. 2168 eliminates the term “assign” and “responsibly to direct” from
list of supervisory duties.
• Only those with real authority to affect employee’s terms of
employment could be classified as supervisors.
• It requires that an employee have supervisory duties during a majority
of his or her work time to be considered a true supervisor.

17. H.R. 2587 – “Protecting Jobs from
Government Interference Act”
• Supporters claim the bill eliminates “government interference.”
• What the bill really does:
– Eviscerates the ability of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to
provide basic protections for working men and women under the National
Labor Relations Act.
– Prohibits the NLRB from ordering any employer to close, relocate, or transfer
employment under any circumstances.
– Changed the rules mid-trial to benefit a particular Fortune 500 company,
Boeing.

18. HR 3094 – The Workforce Democracy and Fairness
Act
• H. R. 3094 purports to maintain the status quo with respect to
elections supervised by the NLRB. However, it does no such thing.
• The bill is designed to interfere with the ability of workers to freely
choose to form a union and to do so in a timely fashion.
• It would further give employers the upper hand by creating new
opportunities for delay.
• It would expand opportunities to run one-sided, anti-union campaigns
(legal and illegal) to discourage workers in their organizing efforts.

19. HR 3094 – The Workforce Democracy and
Fairness Act
• Mandates a delay in union elections by requiring that
workers wait at least 35 days after a petition for election
has been filed to hold a vote.
• But no limit on how long an election may be delayed
because of employer claims, challenges, appeals, and
litigation.
• Allows employers to indefinitely delay scheduling of
election. (Marathon pre-election hearings, requiring
findings on extraneous issues, frivolous litigation.)

20. Anti-Worker/ Anti Union Attacks: Frontal
Assaults & Infiltration
• Weaken/Gut the National Labor Relations Act and Other Worker Protections
• Cripple the Ability of the NLRB, OSHA, DOL and Other Agencies to function
and to enforce the Law (weak as it is.)
• Attacks on the NLRA/NLRB go to the heart of the philosophy that workers
should be free to choose.
• Prior to, and since its enactment in 1935, the Chamber of Commerce has
vigorously opposed the NLRA and sought to eliminate, or weaken, it.
Nothing has changed.
• The weapons: legislation, policy riders, defunding, politics, elections.

21. Anti-Worker/ Anti Union Attacks: Frontal
Assaults & Infiltration
• Weaken or eliminate the right to form a union and bargain collectively.
• Increasing misclassification of workers.
• Eliminate meaningful remedies available to workers. Make it easier for
companies to outsource jobs oversees.
• Interfere with the ability of workers to freely choose to form a union and to do
so in a timely manner.
• Abolish the NLRB and transfer “functions” to the Office of Labor
Management Standards (at DOL) and to the Department of Justice.
• National Right to Work (for Less) legislation.

22. Anti-Worker/ Anti Union Attacks: Frontal
Assaults & Infiltration
• Anti-salting legislation.
• Allow states to outlaw unions unless a majority votes for a union by
secret ballot.
• Outlaw card check – prospectively and retroactively.
• Prohibit pre-emption of state laws by the NLRB.
• A “reverse” decertification procedure – require a secret ballot vote to
continue union representation every 3 years.
• Give non-union members the same rights as union members to vote on a
collective bargaining agreement and to vote on a strike or other work
stoppage.

23. Anti-Worker/ Anti Union Attacks: Frontal
Assaults & Infiltration
• A “reverse” Beck type procedure for union dues other than
costs of collective bargaining. Rather than “opt out” and
pay an agency fee (v. union dues) a worker would have to
affirmatively “opt in”.
• Mandate strike votes by all employees who would be
affected by the strike with the vote conducted by a neutral,
private organization, jointly chosen by the employer and
employee.
• Require a majority of all employees not just those voting
to choose to join a union. (The old NMB election rule.)

24. Anti-Worker/ Anti Union Attacks: Frontal
Assaults & Infiltration
• Prohibit the NLRB from requiring an employer to provide the Board or a
labor organization with employee telephone numbers or e-mail addresses.
• Declare everyone a supervisor!
• Eliminate Davis-Bacon prevailing wage.
• Eliminate Service Contract Act prevailing wage and successor provisions.
• Eliminate federal minimum wage requirements or permit states to opt out.

25. Anti-Worker/ Anti Union Attacks: Frontal
Assaults & Infiltration
• Hamstring OSHA’s ability to issue standards to
protect workers and to enforce workplace safety
and health.
• Erode overtime protections. Expand exemptions
for coverage. Comp time.
• And, then there are the attacks to come on
appropriations bills this year !!

26. Attacks on Worker Rights & Protections & the NLRB in Funding
Bills - Expect Them Again This Year
• The war on workers intensified last year with attacks
coming in the form of anti-worker legislation,
amendments, and policy riders to funding bills for fiscal
year 2012.
• With respect to Fiscal Year 2012 Appropriations bills for
Agriculture, Energy-Water Development, and Interior, a
series of amendments to eliminate Davis-Bacon and
Service Contract Act coverage and to block the President’s
executive order, and thus the use of project labor
agreements, on federally assisted construction projects
were offered and, fortunately, defeated.

27. Attacks on Worker Rights & Protections & the NLRB in
Funding Bills - Expect Them Again This Year
• The broadest and most intense assault on worker protections
came in the Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations Bill
introduced in the House by Representatives Denny Rehberg
and Hal Rogers.
• Made steep cuts in most worker protection and enforcement
programs, including the NLRB.
• Also included numerous policy riders (a number of which are
drawn from H.R. 2587 and H.R. 3094) to block the DOL and
the NLRB from going forward with various rules and
initiatives.

28. Attacks on Worker Rights & Protections & the NLRB in
Funding Bills - Expect Them Again This Year
National Labor Relations Board:
• Filing & Processing of petitions – blocks proposed rulemaking regarding the
timing and scope of representations hearings (and consequently the timing of
elections).
• Employee Rights – prohibits the use of funds for implementation or
enforcement of the final rule governing the notification of employee rights
• NLRA coverage – Prohibits the use of funds for the exercise of jurisdiction by
the NLRB over any entity that meets the definition of a small business concern
under the CFR (re: sm. biz. size regulations). This would virtually gut worker
rights and protections under the NLRA (a sm. biz. could be as large as 500 –
1000 employees).

29. Attacks on Worker Rights & Protections & the NLRB in
Funding Bills - Expect Them Again This Year
Department of Labor:
• Wage & Hour Division – prohibits the use of funds for the continued development or
promulgation of Right to Know under the FLSA regulation, adversely impacting the
DOL’s worker misclassification initiative.
• LMRDA – blocks the promulgation or implementation of a final rule relating to
employer and labor relations consultant reporting under the LMRDA, i.e. the
proposed rulemaking re: interpretations of advice (transparency re: union-busting
activity).
• OSHA – no funds for continuing work on the MSD recording and reporting
requirements, the Injury and Illness Prevention Program (identification and correction
of workplace hazards on an ongoing basis), and residential roof falls prevention.

30. Attacks on Worker Rights & Protections & the NLRB in
Funding Bills - Expect Them Again This Year
Department of Labor:
• Department-Wide – prohibits the use of funds for any activity related
to “significant regulatory action” as defined by E.O. 12866 unless
Approps. Committees notified 30 days prior.
• Other - The bill also prohibits the use of funds to implement,
administer or enforce final Federal Acquisition Regulations regarding
the use of project labor agreements for federal construction projects
published by DOD, GSA and NASA.

31. Overall Federal Income Tax Rates on Millionaires
1997 – Capital gains tax
rate lowered from 28% to
20%
2001 – First Bush tax cuts
lower top marginal rates
from 39.6% to 35%
2003 – Second Bush tax
cuts, reduce capital gains
and dividend taxes to
15%

32. The “Buffett Rule”
• Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012., sponsored by Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse (D-RI).
• Requires that all households with incomes above $1 million pay at least a
30 percent minimum tax rate.
• Failed to pass Senate by vote of 51 – 45, Pryor and Collins broke rank.

33. Stop the War on Workers!
“We didn't start this war – the right wing did. My
comments on Labor Day in Detroit echo the anger
and frustration of American workers who are
under attack by corporate-funded politicians who
want to destroy the middle class. This fight is
about the economy, it’s about jobs, and its about
rebuilding America…we all have to vote to take
these anti-worker politicians out of office.”
- JPH, September 2011