Antiabortion Democrat Henry Cuellar Is Now Seeking to Gut Labor Rights
Antiabortion Democrat Henry Cuellar Is Now Seeking to Gut Labor Rights
BY Liza Featherstone
Henry Cuellar, the conservative, antiabortion Democratic congressman — who Nancy Pelosi called a “fighter for hardworking families” — has shocked the labor movement with a radical bill seeking to eviscerate workers’ rights.
https://jacobin.com/2022/07/antiabortion-democrat-henry-cuellar-worker-flexibility-choice-act/
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Representative Henry Cuellar, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, has introduced a bill eviscerating labor rights that would make the Koch brothers proud.
Cuellar’s bill bears a gaslighting moniker: the Worker Flexibility and Choice Act — joining the Clear Skies Act and the Class Action Fairness Act in the annals of bills whose names are the exact opposite of their actual intent.
Cosponsored with Trumpian Republican Congresswomen Elise Stefanik and Michelle Steel, the bill creates whole new ways for employers to get out of paying minimum wage and overtime, extending the gig economy’s stress and chaos to millions more workers. As employment law professor Veena Dubal of University of California Hastings Law put it on Twitter, this bill would “make earning a living nearly impossible” for workers without bargaining power.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Henry Cuellar partners w/ ultra MAGAt Elise Stefanik on Bill to strip away minimum wage & OT from many workers.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216977382
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1552294858840330246.html
It would carve workers out of min wage & OT protections -- not just app-deployed workers -- ANY WORKER whose employer...1/
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/8442/text
Decided that they would set schedules using algorithms & incentives instead of providing secure hours WOULD NO LONGER HAVE TO PROVIDE A WAGE FLOOR or OVERTIME. 2/
Employers have been trying to get of the minimum wage for a century so they can squeeze more labor out of each human. For workers w/o bargaining power (non-union workers, workers of color, low-wage workers) this bill would make earning a living nearly impossible. 3/
As Uber, DoorDash, and Instacart have already done to their workforce, it would empower employers to force workers to work long and hard to eek out a living. The everyday gamble, insecurity, & stress of gig work would extend beyond these sectors... 4/
And all in the false name of flexibility. We know Uber driving is not flexible like they pretend it is -- there is nothing flexible about making so little that you have to eat, sleep, and work in your car to provide for your family. 5/
This bill is unconscionable. It is an outrage. It would increase economic inequality--especially racialized inequality. We must rise up against this tech-capital driven DYSTOPIA. Workers should have secure, living wages AND real time flexibility. Let's legislate for THAT. 6/END.
Link to tweet
STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE INTRODUCTION OF THE WORKER FLEXIBILITY AND CHOICE ACT
https://www.nelp.org/news-releases/statement-in-response-to-the-introduction-of-the-worker-flexibility-and-choice-act/
Following is a statement from Rebecca Dixon, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, on the introduction of the Worker Flexibility and Choice Act (H.R. 8442):
This bill would radically erode fundamental worker protections in the United States to the benefit of big corporations, allowing them to require workers to sign away basic rights as a condition of work. The bill would also establish a second-tier employment class of disproportionately Black and immigrant workers working in arduous and underpaid jobs without minimum labor protections — growing poverty and racialized economic inequality.
The bill seeks to codify the false choice between scheduling flexibility and foundational rights. Because the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is already compatible with worker flexibility, it would be a fatal mistake for Congress to create a carveout for companies that demand “worker flexibility agreements” of their workforce. Corporations already have the ability to deliver flexibility to workers. Instead, they are using this bill to dramatically degrade the quality of work – including the basic requirement that they pay minimum wage and overtime for countless workers across the country.
The National Employment Law Project (NELP) believes that the movement for workers’ rights can defeat the Coalition for Workforce Innovation with worker organizing and policy innovation that expands labor protections and fixes the flaws in the New Deal and FLSA which left Black and immigrant workers segregated and unprotected.
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Also, shame about Cuellar.
Heyoooo! 
