Tag Archives for " Marvin Kaplan "
Senate Confirms Marvin Kaplan for NLRB
Not Marvin Kaplan. There are no pictures of that guy on the internet apparently!
Update: Kaplan Approved by Senate
Last evening, by a vote of 50-48, the U.S. Senate approved Marvin Kaplan to become the fourth Member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mr. Kaplan joins the current Chair of the Board, Phil Miscimarra as the other Republican. The Board also has two Democrats, Mark Pearce and Lauren McFerran. William Emanuel, the other Republican nominee who will serve as the fifth and final Member of the Board, still awaits Senate confirmation, which will likely to occur after the August recess.
Senate Confirmation Vote on Marvin Kaplan Today at 5 PM
From Politico Pro, here’s an update on the confirmation of National Labor Relations Board nominee Marvin Kaplan.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on NLRB nominee Marvin Kaplan at 5 p.m today.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s motion to move up the vote followed a fiery speech opposing Kaplan by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who accused the nominee of seeking to undermine workers throughout his career as a congressional attorney.
“The president’s appointment to the National Labor Relations Board is pretty much a guy who has tried to make sure workers don’t get a foothold in our economy,” Brown said in his floor speech.
Brown invoked the words of Pope Francis, saying Kaplan and Republicans with similar views seek to demean the value of work by weakening unions. In a speech last month, Pope Francis said, “The capitalism of our time does not understand the value of the trade union, because it has forgotten the social nature of the economy, of the business. This is one of the greatest sins.”
Update: Kaplan Approved by Senate
Last evening, by a vote of 50-48, the U.S. Senate approved Marvin Kaplan to become the fourth Member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mr. Kaplan joins the current Chair of the Board, Phil Miscimarra as the other Republican. The Board also has two Democrats, Mark Pearce and Lauren McFerran. William Emanuel, the other Republican nominee who will serve as the fifth and final Member of the Board, still awaits Senate confirmation, which will likely to occur after the August recess.
Cloture Vote on Kaplan Coming, Senate Dems Raise Supply Chain Concerns
Some news from Washington that doesn’t involve the White House communications team for a change. 
Senate cloture vote on Kaplan expected tomorrow
The Senate will hold a cloture vote on NLRB nominee Marvin Kaplan tomorrow, a leadership source told POLITICO.
The vote is expected to take place as soon as an hour after the Senate convenes at 10 a.m., the source said. After that, senators will be allowed up to 30 hours of debate before voting on final passage.
Kaplan is currently counsel for the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. He has held jobs on the House Education and the Workforce and Oversight and Government Reform committees, as well as the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management and Standards.
Senate leadership has not scheduled a vote on President Donald Trump’s other NLRB nominee, William Emanuel, meaning it probably will be delayed until after the August recess. The Senate HELP Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on Patrick Pizzella, Trump’s deputy labor secretary nominee. A time has not yet been announced.
Senate Democrats urged retailers Monday to use only transportation companies that comply with federal labor law.
In a letter sent to the CEOs of 16 companies, including Target and Walmart, the lawmakers demanded that the corporations ensure that they are “not complicit in the mistreatment of port truck drivers” and that they “are not unwittingly supporting labor abuses in the United States.”
The letter, led by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), came after USA Today published an investigation in June that found “port trucking companies in southern California have spent the past decade forcing drivers to finance their own trucks by taking on debt they could not afford.”
The lawmakers requested that the companies inform them about their steps to “rid worker abuses” from their supply chain. In addition, the lawmakers asked the CEOs whether they plan to cancel contracts with companies that have committed safety and labor violations.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) also signed the letter.
Democrats Introduce Wage Theft Legislation
Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation today intended to prevent wage theft.
The bill would increase the penalties for minimum wage, overtime and record-keeping violations; lengthen the amount of time employees may make a wage theft claim to four years from the date of the violation, up from the current two years; and require that employers provide workers with a pay stub on a regular basis. In addition, the bill would allow workers to recover their actual hourly wage, instead of just the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
In a written statement, Sen. Patty Murray said that the bill was “another step towards building an economy that works for all, not just those at the top.” Rep. Rosa DeLauro said that the bill would “strengthen current federal law and empower employees to recover their lost wages.”
Notes from Today’s Labor Hearings
Notes from Today’s Labor Hearings
Via Politico Pro
National Labor Relations Board Hearing
William Emanuel, one of President Trump’s nominees for the NLRB, said at his confirmation hearing today that the National Labor Relations Act “certainly” seeks to foster unionization.
“Certainly that is one of the principal purposes of the National Labor Relations Act,” Emanuel told the Senate HELP Committee.
“This is a right that employees have,” he said. “And if employees choose to engage in collective bargaining through a labor organization — if that happens then the employer has to respect that right.”
Emanuel — along with NLRB nominee Marvin Kaplan and deputy Labor secretary nominee Patrick Pizzella — all said they agreed with the act, whose preamble declares it “the policy of the United States” to encourage “the practice and procedure of collective bargaining.”
Deputy Labor Secretary Hearing
Deputy Labor Secretary nominee told Congress today he was not aware of worker abuses in the Northern Mariana Islands as he lobbied to shield the territory from federal labor laws in the 1990s.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) read off a list of documented abuses of women workers on the islands — including forced abortion, prostitution and beatings — while Pizzella was lobbying against federal minimum wage protections there.
“Were you aware of these horrible conditions while you lobbied against minimum wage protections for workers?” Franken asked.
“I was not aware of any such thing,” Pizzella said.
Pizzella sidestepped another question from Franken on whether he and his associates — including Jack Abramoff, who later went to prison — lobbied against a bill from then-Sen. Frank Murkowski to stop worker abuses in the Marianas.
“I don’t remember if we actually lobbied against that legislation,” Pizzella said. “But I’d assume we did.”
Franken pressed him further, asking: “Would it bother you to know you lobbied against legislation for thousands of workers that were being abused?”
“Of course it would,” Pizzella said, adding a caveat: “What you mentioned were allegations made.”