[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 79 (Tuesday, May 7, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H2891-H2896]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE 
 NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD RELATING TO ``STANDARD FOR DETERMINING 
JOINT EMPLOYER STATUS''--VETO MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 
                                 STATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. DesJarlais). Pursuant to the order of 
the House of May 6, 2024, the unfinished business is the further 
consideration of the veto message of the President on the joint 
resolution (H.J. Res. 98) providing for congressional disapproval under 
chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the 
National Labor Relations Board relating to ``Standard for Determining 
Joint Employer Status''.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is, Will the House, on 
reconsideration, pass the joint resolution, the objections of the 
President to the contrary notwithstanding?
  (For veto messages, see proceedings of the House of May 6, 2024, at 
page H2840.)
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good) is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, for purpose of debate only, I 
yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Scott), the ranking member on the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.


                             General Leave

  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material on the veto message on H.J. Res. 98.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of 
overriding President Biden's veto of H.J. Res. 98. A vote in favor of 
this resolution will nullify the Biden administration's attempt to 
redefine what it means to be a joint employer under the National Labor 
Relations Act.
  After receiving bipartisan support from both Chambers, Congress sent 
H.J. Res. 98 to the President's desk showing our broad disapproval of 
the new joint employer rule. Now, with President Biden's veto, the 
message from the administration is clear: Franchise businesses are not 
welcome partners in the Biden economy.

[[Page H2892]]

  In fact, the Biden administration wants to return to the harm done 
during the Obama-Biden administration, when this rule was first in 
effect and cost the economy more than $30 billion and nearly 400,000 
jobs on an annual basis for the 5-year period until President Trump, 
thankfully, reversed the rule.
  It also benefited the Democrats' favorite trial lawyers when lawsuits 
against franchise businesses increased by 93 percent.
  The joint employer rule overturns legal precedent that was in place 
from 1984 to 2015. It is a direct attack on the thousands of small 
businesses that make up the healthy and growing franchise sector.
  Currently, a business is considered an employer only if they exercise 
direct and immediate control over an employee's essential terms and 
conditions of employment. However, the new rule establishes that two or 
more businesses are in a joint employer relationship if one employer 
merely exercises indirect control over another company's employees.
  Under this standard, something as simple as a franchisor giving a 
franchisee a company handbook could be interpreted as exercising 
indirect control.
  Changing the definition of who controls a business creates confusion 
and threatens the independence of so many successful small business 
owners.
  Biden's rule will saddle franchisors with liability for independent 
franchise owners, over which they do not have control. Inevitably, the 
result of this rule will be less growth, more lawsuits, and the 
functional transformation of businessowners into middle managers.
  It is already very difficult to operate a small business today in 
Biden's America. The administration's response to high inflation, low 
workforce participation, and high interest rates, which are causing so 
much economic hardship from Bidenomics, is to aggressively pursue an 
anti-employer, antiworker, pro-union-boss agenda.
  We must protect the model that is currently working for businesses 
and eliminate the threat of this new rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of overriding the 
President's veto of H.J. Res. 98, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from 
Virginia for yielding time, and I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I rise once again in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 98, the 
Congressional Review Act resolution to repeal the National Labor 
Relations Board's joint employer rule, which the board finalized last 
October.
  Workers should be able to negotiate for higher pay, better benefits, 
and safer workplaces through their unions. Regrettably, this is not the 
case for millions of Americans, including janitors, housekeepers, 
cooks, and many others who are employed through subcontractors or temp 
agencies.
  The rise of what is called the fissured workplace, where firms 
increasingly use overlapping arrangements of contracting, 
subcontracting, and temping, has weakened workers' bargaining power and 
allowed large corporations to evade bargaining obligations and 
liabilities.

                              {time}  1430

  For example, if an employee of a subcontractor unionized, the 
subcontractor would be unable to actually bargain over pay, hours, 
workplace safety, or other issues. That is because the actual contract 
is with the prime contractor who essentially sets the terms and 
conditions of employment for the employee, and the subcontractor is 
just administering the terms of that contract. Bargaining with the 
subcontractor becomes essentially useless because the subcontractor is 
paid based on assumed wages, and they don't have the ability to change 
those wages. The prime contractor needs to be at the table if someone 
is thinking of negotiating wages at all.
  Additionally, by evading bargaining obligations, the prime 
contractor, who is actually setting some or all of the terms of 
conditions of the work, can actually shift liability for an unfair 
labor practice onto the subcontractor or the temp agency.
  Mr. Speaker, the NLRB's new rule fixed the problem by ensuring 
workers can negotiate with all entities who actually control their 
working conditions. This also protects small businesses from being held 
liable for labor violations that are a result of the larger firms' 
actions.
  This isn't about franchising. No franchiser has ever been found to be 
a joint employer under any of the various joint employer rules, 
including this one.
  H.J. Res. 98 would undermine workers' ability to exercise their 
rights and reinstate the deficient Trump-era rule that narrowed the 
joint employer standard. Under the Trump-era standard, employers who 
control the working conditions could easily evade their obligations to 
collectively bargain with employees. That would have the effect of 
reducing the earnings of workers.
  According to the Economic Policy Institute, the Trump-era rule would 
reduce workers' hard-earned paychecks by about $1.3 billion. 
Conversely, the Biden joint employer rule is estimated to raise 
workers' earnings.
  So we should not go backwards. The Biden-Harris administration's 
joint employer rule empowers workers and protects small businesses, so 
I applaud President Biden for his veto of H.J. Res. 98.
  So let's be clear. This is not about the joint employer rule. We have 
already had that debate back in January.
  This is a debate about the Republican majority's inability to do 
basic arithmetic. Overriding the President's veto requires two-thirds, 
or 290 Members, of the House. That is not going to happen. This measure 
only passed with 206 votes, nearly all of them from Republicans, so 
anybody who can count knows the Republican majority does not have the 
votes to override the veto.
  So why are we taking this up?
  It is because we are just a metaphor for the Republicans' failed 
agenda. Instead of taking time to do something constructive, we are 
taking precious floor time on this doomed override vote when we could 
be doing something better like raising the minimum wage, or making 
workplaces safer and healthier, or ensuring women receive equal pay for 
equal work, or combating child labor, or establishing paid sick leave, 
or strengthening workers' ability to organize and collectively bargain.
  However, that is not what we are doing. All that is happening now is 
what has happened during the whole 118th Congress: the House majority 
insists on spending floor time on votes like this that have no chance 
of succeeding.
  So House Democrats believe we can do better. We remain focused on the 
priorities and others that lower costs and grow the middle class. That 
is what we ought to be focused on.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this is and always will be about labor unions. That is 
essentially what my friend from the Commonwealth of Virginia just said. 
However, we need to go back to pro-growth policies when real wages were 
growing for everyone, when unemployment was at a record low for 
everyone, and there were millions more Americans working during the 
Trump administration.
  Bidenomics and Bidenflation don't work. This is a recession back into 
the past here. It is not going to work. We are not responsible for what 
the Senate does, Mr. Speaker. We are not responsible for what the White 
House does. The Senate actually agreed with us on this on a bipartisan 
basis, and the House did this on a bipartisan basis.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
James).
  Mr. JAMES. I thank Mr. Good for yielding, and I appreciate the 
opportunity to address my colleagues and you, Mr. Speaker.
  It has been said that government doesn't create jobs, but they sure 
know how to kill them.
  I agree with that.
  Listening to my colleagues here today, I have to restate, Mr. 
Speaker, that the American Dream is worth fighting for.
  Franchises create the surest and shortest path for entrepreneurs, 
working people in my district, and all across the country to achieve 
the American Dream. The reason we are here again is because we are 
giving our colleagues the opportunity to tell the American people that 
they will choose them and

[[Page H2893]]

their American Dream over the special interests and political 
selfishness that choosing their own best interests may lead to.
  The right to collectively bargain was established by this body in 
1935, and the right to work was enshrined in Michigan's constitution 
just last year. However, once again, the Biden administration has gone 
too far.
  Franchise businesses are the path out of situations for people in 
urban America, rural America, and everywhere in between.
  The Biden-led National Labor Relations Board resurrected a policy 
that, when imposed during the Obama Administration, saw jobs lost and 
dreams crushed. The last rule saw 376,000 lost job opportunities in the 
franchise sector.

  It was also said what might happen, what could happen, and what 
should happen, and then I heard fixing a problem. It sounds like people 
who have never had the chance to live under the rules they are creating 
are now creating organizations and structures that they won't have to 
live under. This is exactly the reason we were elected to come here to 
represent our constituents' interests and not the interests here, Mr. 
Speaker.
  Thanks to President Biden's policies, we have inflation and 
regulation, not success and determination.
  My colleagues on this side of the aisle are willing to bet on America 
and are willing to bet on the entrepreneurial spirit while also 
respecting the right to collectively bargain without burdensome 
regulations that we know stifle the American Dream.
  The President's veto is clear.
  Mr. Speaker, while the President and the Vice President go around the 
country saying they are friends of small business, their administration 
is literally putting policies in place that crush it.
  The only reason our colleagues would not vote to override this veto 
is because they are in lockstep with the administration, prioritizing 
politics over people. They have the opportunity to vote along with us, 
to overturn these harmful policies to allow Americans to self-determine 
without threat to their right to collectively bargain.
  This is a clear opportunity to get this right, and I hope my 
colleagues on the other side will support our endeavor to do the right 
thing for the people in our districts who, no doubt, shed blood, sweat, 
and tears to make their dream a reality.
  As our President seeks to make the case to the American people, he 
should not assume that small business is the enemy.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we have to get some job numbers rather than just 
adjectives and everything on the table.
  The fact is that President Trump during his 4 years lost over 6 
million jobs, but President Biden so far has created over 15 million, 
the longest period of time with unemployment under 4 percent since the 
1960s.
  Before you start excusing President Trump because of a pandemic, he 
had a pandemic for about 10 months, President Biden had a pandemic for 
2 years.
  So this legislation the President has vetoed, I think it is helpful 
just to read the President's message of why he vetoed the resolution.
  He said: ``I am returning herewith without my approval H.J. Res. 98, 
a resolution that would disapprove of the National Labor Relations 
Board's rule entitled `Standard for Determining Joint Employer Status.'
  ``Since day one, my administration has fought to strengthen workers' 
right to organize and bargain for higher wages, better benefits, and 
safer working conditions. The NLRB's rule would prevent companies from 
evading their bargaining obligations or liability when they control a 
worker's working condition--even if they reserve such control or 
exercise it indirectly through a subcontractor or other intermediary. 
If multiple companies control the terms and conditions of employment, 
then the right to organize is rendered futile whenever the workers 
cannot bargain collectively with each of those employers.
  ``Without the NLRB's rule, companies could more easily avoid 
liability simply by manipulating their corporate structure, like hiding 
behind subcontractors or staffing agencies. By hampering the NLRB's 
efforts to promote the practice and procedure of collective bargaining, 
Republicans are siding with union-busting corporations over the needs 
of workers and their unions. I am proud to be the most pro-union, pro-
worker President in American history. I make no apologies for my 
administration protecting the right to organize and bargain 
collectively.
  ``Therefore, I am vetoing this resolution.
  ``Joseph R. Biden, Jr.''
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I have to hand it to my friend from Virginia. He is 
resilient, but he has got a tough job trying to defend the economic 
record of the current administration.
  We have got some 4 million people less working than were working when 
he became President. Everyone knows that under the previous 
administration, again, we had record-low unemployment and record-high 
labor participation. Now we have a record-low labor participation rate.
  We had unemployment that was at record lows for everyone during the 
previous administration and real wage growth under the previous 
administration.
  Now we have 40-year high inflation. Inflation was nonexistent before 
this President got into office. We have 20-year high interest rates 
which are further crushing the American people. We have got our credit 
being downgraded because of the reckless, excessive, wasteful, and 
unprecedented spending which will cause interest rates to go even 
higher.
  Mr. Speaker, you can't fool the American people. You can't tell them 
it is good when they know that it is bad. They are suffering at the 
grocery store, they are suffering when they pay the utility bill, they 
are suffering at the gas pump, they are suffering when they make the 
mortgage payment or when they make the rent payment, and they are 
suffering when they are unable to afford to buy a home, especially for 
young people starting out.
  This is all a direct result of bad policy from this President. This 
is just one more example as he vetoes the will of the American people 
reflected in a bipartisan manner by both Houses of Congress sending him 
legislation to overturn this rule, and yet he has vetoed it and has 
forced us to try to overcome his veto today.
  Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close if the gentleman from Virginia is 
prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters in opposition to this 
resolution in support of the President's veto from SEIU, AFL-CIO, and 
the Teamsters.
                                                 November 2, 2023.
       Dear Representative: On behalf of the 12.5 million workers 
     represented by the AFL-CIO, the 2 million workers represented 
     by SEIU, and the 1.2 million workers represented by the 
     International Brotherhood of Teamsters, we write to urge you 
     to support the National Labor Relations Board's (``NLRB'' or 
     ``the Board'') recent final rule addressing joint-employer 
     status under the National Labor Relations Act (``NLRA'' or 
     ``the Act''). This important rule will ensure that workers 
     have a real voice at the bargaining table when multiple 
     companies control their working conditions. Accordingly, the 
     undersigned unions strongly oppose any effort to nullify or 
     weaken the rule, whether by legislation or resolution under 
     the Congressional Review Act.
       The rule, published on October 27, 2023, rescinds the Trump 
     NLRB's 2020 joint-employer rule and replaces it with an 
     updated standard that is based on well-established common-law 
     principles and consistent with recent D.C. Circuit decisions 
     identifying critical flaws in the Trump NLRB's approach to 
     this issue. The Board's updated rule is welcome and necessary 
     because the Trump rule was harmful to workers' organizing 
     efforts, inconsistent with the governing legal principles, 
     and against the policies of the Act.
       The crux of this issue is simple--when workers seek to 
     bargain collectively over their wages, hours and working 
     conditions, every entity with control over those issues must 
     be at the bargaining table. The Act protects and encourages 
     collective bargaining as a means of resolving labor disputes. 
     Collective bargaining cannot serve that purpose if companies 
     with control over the issues in dispute are absent from the 
     bargaining table. The Trump rule offered companies a roadmap 
     to retain ultimate control

[[Page H2894]]

     over key aspects of workers' lives--like wages and working 
     conditions--while avoiding their duty to bargain. This 
     standard left workers stranded at the bargaining table and 
     unable to negotiate with the people who could actually 
     implement proposed improvements.
       Companies are adopting business structures specifically 
     designed to maintain control over the workers who keep their 
     businesses running while simultaneously disclaiming any 
     responsibility for those workers under labor and employment 
     laws. Such businesses often insert second and third-level 
     intermediaries between themselves and their workers. These 
     companies seek to have it both ways--to control the workplace 
     like an employer but dodge the legal responsibilities of an 
     employer. This phenomenon is often called workplace 
     ``fissuring.''
       Fissured workplaces, sometimes involving staffing firms, 
     temp agencies, or subcontractors, often leave workers unable 
     to raise concerns, or collectively bargain with, the entity 
     that actually controls their workplace. In such arrangements, 
     multiple entities may share control over a worker's terms of 
     employment. For example, if employees of a subcontractor were 
     to unionize and bargain only with the subcontractor, it might 
     simply refuse to bargain over certain issues because its 
     contract with the prime contractor governs those aspects of 
     the work (e.g., pay, hours, safety, etc.). This harms workers 
     because the entity that effectively determines workplace 
     policy is not at the bargaining table, placing workers' 
     desired improvements out of reach.
       The way to ensure that workers can actually bargain with 
     each entity that controls their work is to readily identify 
     such entities as ``joint employers.'' The Act requires joint 
     employers to collectively bargain with employees over working 
     conditions that they control. But the Trump NLRB's joint 
     employer rule was designed to help companies with such 
     control escape bargaining. The rule's standard for finding a 
     joint employment relationship was unrealistic and overly 
     narrow. It conditioned a company's joint employer status on 
     proof that it actually exercised substantial direct and 
     immediate control, discounting its reserved or indirect power 
     to control a small list of working conditions. This conflicts 
     with the governing common law principles, which make clear 
     that a company's power to control working conditions must 
     bear on its employer status (and thus its bargaining 
     responsibilities under the Act) regardless of whether it has 
     formally exercised that power. The new final rule correctly 
     rescinded the Trump rule.
       Critics of the new rule claim that its joint employer 
     standard will outright destroy certain business models or 
     dramatically change operations. Opponents claim, for example, 
     that companies will be required to bargain over issues they 
     have no control over, or will be automatically liable for 
     another entity's unfair labor practices. This is simply 
     untrue and a further attempt to leave workers with no 
     opportunity to bargain with controlling entities. The final 
     rule makes it clear that a joint employer's bargaining 
     obligations extend only to those terms and conditions within 
     its control. And current Board law--unchanged by the rule--
     only extends unfair labor practice liability to a joint 
     employer if it knew or should have known of another 
     employer's illegal action, had the power to stop it, and 
     chose not to.
       Similarly, critics claim that the new standard imposes 
     blanket joint employer status on parties to certain business 
     models like franchises, temp agencies, subcontractors, or 
     staffing firms. This is also untrue. The rule does not 
     proclaim that all franchisors are now joint employers with 
     their franchisees, or that any company using workers from a 
     temp agency is automatically their employer. The particular 
     business model used by parties in any case is not 
     determinative. Instead, the Board looks at every case 
     individually, and grants companies a full and fair 
     opportunity to explain the underlying business relationship 
     and dispute whether they control the relevant workers' 
     essential terms and conditions of employment. The Board 
     conducts a fact-specific, case-by-case analysis that 
     considers whether the putative joint employer controls 
     essential terms and conditions of employment.
       Make no mistake, the Board's rule may well result in the 
     employees of a staffing firm, for example, being treated also 
     as employees of the firm's client, but only if the client 
     controls the employees' terms and conditions of employment. 
     That is the only way workers can meaningfully bargain at 
     work. But even in that situation, the workers are deemed 
     employees only for purposes of the NLRA and collective 
     bargaining, and the client would be obligated to bargain only 
     about the terms it controls. It would still be up to workers 
     to choose whether they want to organize a union and 
     collectively bargain with their employer or employers. 
     Nothing in the NLRB's rule alters employers' responsibilities 
     under any other state or federal law (e.g., tax laws, wage 
     and hour laws, or workplace safety laws) or requires any 
     changes to business structures. But it does make clear their 
     responsibility under the NLRA to show up at the bargaining 
     table.
       The new rule is clear and commonsense: there is no 
     bargaining obligation for an entity that cannot control 
     workplace policies or working conditions. And for good 
     reason--their presence at the bargaining table would be 
     pointless. Workers have no interest in bargaining with a 
     company that lacks the power to implement the workplace 
     improvements they seek.
       This rule simply invokes a more realistic joint employer 
     standard on par with the standard enforced during the Obama 
     administration, allowing a company's indirect or reserved 
     control over working conditions to be sufficient for finding 
     joint employer status. Workers' right to collectively bargain 
     cannot be realized if the entity that has the power to change 
     terms and conditions of employment is absent from the 
     bargaining table.
       For the reasons explained above, the undersigned unions 
     oppose any effort to nullify the Board's rule. In particular, 
     we urge Congress to oppose efforts to nullify the rule under 
     the Congressional Review Act (``CRA''). Here, a successful 
     CRA disapproval resolution would be particularly harmful: it 
     would revert the NLRB's joint employer standard to the Trump 
     Board's 2020 rule, which stymies workers at the bargaining 
     table. And further, as explained above, at least one federal 
     appeals court has strongly suggested that provisions of the 
     2020 rule are inconsistent with the NLRA, so litigation would 
     likely invalidate that rule as well. This would create 
     confusion for the workers, unions, and employers regulated by 
     the NLRB. Not only could the two standards be nullified, 
     leaving the Board's joint employer analysis in limbo, but the 
     NLRB's ability to address that limbo would be unclear due to 
     CRA limitations.
       The CRA provides that once a disapproval resolution is 
     passed, the underlying agency cannot issue a subsequent rule 
     in ``substantially the same form'' as the disapproved rule 
     unless it is specifically authorized by a subsequent law. 
     Thus, if the Board's new rule is nullified under the CRA, and 
     the prior Trump rule is invalidated by federal courts, the 
     NLRB would be limited in issuing a clarifying rule. To avoid 
     confusion and ensure stability for workers, unions, and 
     employers, Congress must steer clear of using the CRA to 
     address the joint employer standard.
       For these reasons, we ask that you support the NLRB's joint 
     employer rule and oppose any effort to weaken or nullify the 
     clarified standard.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter 
from the United Steelworkers, in support of the President's veto.


                                           United Steelworkers

                                Pittsburgh, PA, November 14, 2023.
     Re: United Steelworkers urges a NO vote on H.J. Res. 98, 
         which would invalidate the National Labor Relations 
         Board's new Standard for Determining Joint Employer 
         Status.

     U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative: On behalf of the 850,000 active 
     members of the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, 
     Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers 
     International Union (USW), I write to oppose a misguided and 
     short-sighted Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution--H.J. 
     Res 98. If this resolution passes, American workers will 
     increasingly face a fractured workplace and lose access to 
     federally protected collective bargaining rights.
       Updating the NLRB joint employer standard is necessary as 
     employers are increasingly using ``fissured'' workplace 
     models to keep the parent company from having to bargain with 
     workers employed by the smaller contracted companies. The 
     continued contracting out and increased usage of temporary 
     workers leads to terrible outcomes for the most vulnerable, 
     precisely because these workers lack the ability to 
     meaningfully organize and collectively bargain with their 
     appropriate employer(s).
       For example, a 2014 National Employment Law Project report 
     found that workers at subcontracted firms receive wages from 
     7-40 percent lower than their non-contracted out peers. That 
     same study also showed that workers in subcontracted firms 
     suffer higher rates of wage theft and unpaid overtime. 
     Analysis from ProPublica has also shown that temp workers are 
     at an increased risk of workplace injury. Lastly, and perhaps 
     most chillingly, child workers have been found in meatpacking 
     plants, while auto-supply chains in the South have had 
     children as young as 14 years old working for subcontracted 
     firms--sometimes with deadly consequences. If this resolution 
     passes, Congress will have made it easier for corporations to 
     shirk responsibility of their employment oversight, and make 
     it harder for the American labor movement to stop labor 
     abuses such as wage theft, unpaid overtime, workplace 
     injuries, and child labor.
       The NLRB had to act as the result of a partisan rulemaking 
     process during the Trump administration. Prior to 2020, the 
     NLRB's assessment of a joint employer standard had been 
     guided by common law for over 50 years. The NLRB, as a quasi-
     judicial body, would use case decisions to substantiate its 
     joint employer standard.
       The Trump administration's NLRB dramatically broke with 
     precedent and created a regulatory rulemaking process to 
     establish a new joint employer standard. Through this final 
     rule, the previous NLRB added non-statutory and non-common 
     law requirements to the NLRB joint employer assessment--
     notably, the requirement that an employer must ``possess and 
     exercise . . . substantial direct and immediate control'' 
     over a worker's ``essential terms and conditions of 
     employment'' to be considered joint employers.
       The problem with this Trump era rule is that it 
     significantly constrained the NLRB's

[[Page H2895]]

     ability to exercise jurisdiction over cases, and limited the 
     scope of the joint employer standard on when the NLRB can 
     weigh in. With such a weak standard, employers were able to 
     simultaneously influence a worker's wages, hours, and working 
     conditions--all while being inoculated from having to bargain 
     over those issues with their workers.
       By returning to common-law principles in this new standard, 
     the NLRB provides ``a practical approach to ensuring that the 
     entities effectively exercising control over workers' 
     critical terms of employment respect their bargaining 
     obligations under the NLRA''.
       Unfortunately, Representative James John (R-MI-10), along 
     with 29 other Republicans, introduced a Congressional Review 
     Act resolution to repeal the NLRB's return to past precedent. 
     USW strongly opposes the use of a CRA to undermine the NLRB. 
     If a CRA were to be successfully used, it would prevent the 
     federal agency from ever issuing a substantially similar 
     rule, freezing in perpetuity a process that was designed to 
     evolve with employment practices.
       USW opposes H.J. Res 98 in the strongest terms and will 
     educate union membership on any floor vote outcome. The 
     NLRB's released joint employer standard returns the country 
     to prior precedent, and strengthens the legal right of 
     millions of workers across this country to collectively 
     bargain with their appropriate employer(s). Again, I urge you 
     to support this new standard and oppose H.J. Res. 98.
           Sincerely,
                                                     David McCall,
                                          International President.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, lastly, I include in the Record a 
letter from dozens of labor and civil rights organizations in support 
of the veto.
                                                November 20, 2023.

     Re: NLRB Joint Employer Rule CRA.

     Hon. Charles Schumer,
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Hon. Bernie Sanders,
     Hon. Bill Cassidy,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Mike Johnson,
     Hon. Hakeem Jeffries,
     Hon. Viriginia Foxx,
     Hon. Robert ``Bobby'' C. Scott,
     House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Members of Congress: The undersigned organizations 
     write to share our opposition to the Congressional Review Act 
     (CRA) challenge to the National Labor Relations Board's 2023 
     Joint Employer Rule.
       Millions of workers in precarious and subcontracted work 
     depend on the joint-employer doctrine to protect their right 
     to organize under the NLRA. In labor-intensive and underpaid 
     industries like retail, hospitality, fast food, janitorial, 
     construction, and delivery, workers hired through 
     intermediary subcontractors like staffing agencies and 
     specialized contract firms are effectively deprived of their 
     labor rights because the law fails to recognize who their 
     employers are. They provide work central to the hotels, 
     retail operators, fast food chains, construction contractors, 
     delivery companies, and other corporations that rely on their 
     labor but are unable to hold those employers accountable when 
     their labor rights are violated. While this harms a broad 
     range of workers, it has particularly damaging impacts for 
     women, Black workers, immigrants, people of color, and people 
     with disabilities who disproportionately hold precarious, 
     low-paid jobs.
       The Board's new rule reaffirms that, under the NLRA, a 
     worker may be jointly-employed when more than one entity 
     shares or co-determines the essential terms and conditions of 
     their work. What matters is not the corporate structure or 
     what the companies call the work relationship; what matters 
     is who has the power to control the essential terms of 
     employment, like pay, discipline, and health & safety on the 
     job.
       Now, large corporations and industry trade groups are 
     pushing Congress to vote for a CRA resolution to overturn the 
     rule. Despite the claims made by these self-interested 
     groups, the joint employer rule is a simple and necessary 
     course correction that:
       Rescinds the misguided 2020 rule, which improperly narrowed 
     the NLRA's coverage and unmoored the legal standard from the 
     common law, by requiring workers to show that a business had 
     ``substantial direct and immediate control'' over the 
     essential terms of employment;
       Grounds the legal analysis in the common law, building on 
     the Obama-era Browning-Ferris decision that the 2020 Trump 
     rule overrode;
       Affirms that companies are liable for committing unfair 
     labor practices (such as terminating workers for exercising 
     their right to organize) and required to bargain with their 
     workers as joint employers, where they control the essential 
     terms and conditions of employment;
       Accounts for forms of control that are ``indirect'' and 
     ``reserved,'' as well as direct and actually exercised, in 
     determining whether or not there is an employment 
     relationship; and
       Recognizes that the ``essential terms and conditions of 
     employment'' include workplace health and safety, and 
     direction as to how to complete the work, as well as control 
     over pay and discipline.
       This rule is a major step toward safeguarding the labor 
     rights of millions of workers in subcontracted employment, 
     ensuring that corporations cannot skirt the law simply by 
     outsourcing responsibility for their workers. Should a CRA to 
     overturn this rule be brought to the floor, we strongly urge 
     all Members of Congress to vote No.
           Sincerely,
       A Better Balance; AFL-CIO; American Federation of State, 
     County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); APALA; Asian 
     American Pacific Islander Civic Engagement Collaborative of 
     New Virginia Majority; Bruckner Burch PLLC; Care in Action; 
     Caring Across Generations; Center for Economic and Policy 
     Research; Center for Law and Social Policy; Cincinnati 
     Interfaith Workers Center; Clearinghouse on Women's Issues; 
     Communications Workers of America (CWA); Community Legal 
     Services, Philadelphia; Congregation of Our Lady of Charity 
     of the Good Shepherd, U.S. Provinces.
       CRLA Foundation; Demand Progress; Demos; Economic Policy 
     Institute; Endangered Species Coalition; Equal Rights 
     Advocates; Feminist Majority Foundation; Impact Fund; 
     International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Japanese American 
     Citizens League (JACL); Jobs to Move America; Jobs With 
     Justice; Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana; 
     Justice at Work; Justice in Motion.
       Kentucky Equal Justice Center; KIWA; Lawyers' Committee for 
     Civil Rights Under Law; Legal Aid at Work; Long Beach 
     Alliance for Clean Energy; National Advocacy Center of the 
     Good Shepherd; National Center for Law and Economic Justice; 
     National Council for Occupational Safety and Health; National 
     Domestic Workers Alliance; National Education Association; 
     National Employment Lawyers Association; National Employment 
     Law Project (NELP); National Institute for Workers' Rights; 
     National Organization for Women; National Partnership for 
     Women & Families.
       National Resource Center on Domestic Violence; National 
     Women's Law Center; New Jersey Association on Correction; 
     North Carolina Justice Center; Northwest Workers' Justice 
     Project; Public Justice Center; Restaurant Opportunities 
     Centers United; Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition 
     Service Employees International Union; Shriver Center on 
     Poverty Law; TechEquity Collaborative; The Leadership 
     Conference on Civil and Human Rights; The Legal Aid Society; 
     The Women's Employment Rights Clinic (WERC) at Golden Gate 
     University (GGU); Transport Workers Union of America.
       UAW; United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of 
     America; United Food and Commercial Workers International 
     Union (UFCW); Women Employed; Worker Justice Center of New 
     York; Worker Power Coalition; Workers Defense Action Fund; 
     Workplace Fairness; Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers 
     University; Workplace Justice Project at Loyola Law Clinic; 
     Worksafe; Young Invincibles.

  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I just want to reiterate that the 
credit rating that was threatened was the result of the Republicans 
threatening a default on our debt. That wasn't anything the Democrats 
had done.
  Again, I just reiterate that under Biden over 15 million jobs were 
created. Under Trump over 6 million were lost. We have had the longest 
period of time of unemployment, under 4 percent, since the 1960s. I 
think that is a fairly easy record to defend.

                              {time}  1445

  Mr. Speaker, in closing, there is no reason to override the 
President's veto, and the votes aren't going to be there. 
Unfortunately, this is how the Republicans have operated during the 
118th Congress. This is going to be the least-productive Congress in 
history.
  In contrast, under Democratic leadership, last Congress, we delivered 
on significant results. We created millions of jobs, reduced 
unemployment to record lows, and, under this administration, kept it 
under record lows. We have saved more than a million people's pensions 
under the multi-employer pension fund, and we helped tens of thousands 
of businesses because they were legally obligated to pay into those 
failing funds until the businesses went broke.
  We delivered historic funding for education. We improved child 
nutrition. We brought the number of uninsured Americans down to the 
lowest level ever. I think we can take credit for all of that.
  By prioritizing and wasting time on efforts like this, the Republican 
majority is failing to live up to the same standard that Democrats have 
lived up to.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend the President for vetoing H.J. Res. 98 and 
protecting American workers. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on 
this override effort and yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time to close.
  Mr. Speaker, my friend from Virginia said it himself. The unions, the 
Teamsters and the steelworkers, are for this. That is reason enough to 
oppose this.

[[Page H2896]]

  We talked about the credit being downgraded. It is unprecedented in 
the country, twice to have our credit downgraded during this 
President's time in office.
  The previous President had record job growth and a roaring economy 
until the pandemic hit. Under this President, of course, some of the 
jobs that were lost in the pandemic have been recovered, but not all of 
them.
  Again, we have a record-low labor participation rate, meaning the 
percentage of those able-bodied, working-age Americans who are working 
is at an all-time low. We don't count those individuals who aren't 
looking for work in the unemployment numbers. They don't count. You 
have an artificially low so-called unemployment rate because there are 
record numbers of Americans on Federal assistance, as we have stripped 
away all the work requirements for cash welfare, for food stamps, and 
for housing assistance.
  While we on this side measure success by how many people we get off 
of government assistance, the other side measures success by how many 
people are on government assistance programs as my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle continue to try to grow the amount of people 
who are paid not to work, which further causes economic harm.
  We cannot just cut our spending on our way to prosperity. Again, in 
this country, we have to grow our way by going back to pro-growth 
policies.
  Mr. Speaker, in testimony before our committee on this issue, the 
president of the International Franchise Association said: The rule 
would make franchisees merely employers of and/or co-employers with 
their franchisor. This will significantly diminish the value of the 
business that they have spent their entire careers building.
  We know his statement is true because we have seen this policy play 
out before. Years ago, when President Obama's NLRB advanced a similar 
rule, the International Franchise Association conducted a study on its 
impact, and research showed that the indirect control standard cost the 
industry, as my friend from Michigan said, as much as $33 billion 
annually, killed almost 400,000 jobs, and, once again, increased 
lawsuits against franchise businesses by 93 percent.
  The franchise model represents an opportunity to pursue the American 
Dream. Congress must stand up for the 9 million franchise workers 
across the country and override President Biden's veto.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is, Will the House, on 
reconsideration, pass the joint resolution, the objections of the 
President to the contrary notwithstanding?
  Under the Constitution, the vote must be by the yeas and nays.
  Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question 
will be postponed.

                          ____________________