Labor News & Commentary August 4, 2024 Biden's NLRB nominees clear a key Senate hurdle & more

https://onlabor.org/august-4-2024/

By Otto Barenberg

Otto Barenberg is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s news and commentary, Biden’s NLRB nominees clear a key Senate hurdle; Hollywood unions ratify new contracts; and Greek workers push for paid heat leave.

On Thursday, the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee voted to advance President Biden’s two National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) nominees. In a party line vote (11-10), committee members backed NLRB Chair Lauren McFerran’s nomination for a second term, while concurrently endorsing Joshua Ditelberg’s nomination for the Board’s open Republican seat (18-3). If both nominees are confirmed by the entire Senate, Democrats will lock in a majority on the Board through 2026, regardless of the outcome of the presidential election.

But obstacles remain and time is running short. Senator Joe Manchin, an Independent, has indicated he will only support presidential nominees who can win Republican Senate votes—and Senator Lisa Murkowski, one of only two Republicans to back Democratic Board Member Gwynne Wilcox’s nomination last year, opposed McFerran’s renomination in committee. Without Manchin, McFerran would need unanimous support from the Democratic Senate caucus, along with Vice President Harris’s tie-breaking vote. In addition, with upcoming recesses in August and October and a jam-packed legislative calendar in September, the Senate’s pre-election bandwidth is highly limited.

Late last week, five Hollywood unions representing nearly 8,000 film crew workers ratified contracts with major studios, winning an across-the-board seven percent pay bump. While the collective bargaining agreements achieved wage hikes equivalent to those won by SAG-AFTRA members in their strike last year, some unions had hoped for more. Teamsters Local 399 had pushed for larger wage increases, staffing minimum guarantees, and a ban on driverless trucks—without success. The Teamsters have initiated a broader campaign to maintain jobs and road safety amid the rollout of autonomous vehicle technology. In February, a coalition of Teamsters and lawmakers introduced a bill in the California statehouse to require human operators for driverless trucks weighing more than 10,000 lbs. While Hollywood studios offered assurances that they do not plan to use autonomous vehicles anytime soon, they declined to make any contractual guarantees.

FULL story at link above.