GM strike update

With help from Ted Hesson and Ian Kullgren

Editor’s Note: This edition of Morning Shift is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Employment & Immigration subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. Learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services at politicopro.com.

Quick Fix

— Everything you need to know about the General Motors strike.

— DHS says it won’t release in this calendar year its proposal to rescind work authorization for spouses of H-1B visa holders.

— Democrats say the NLRB may have violated ethics rules by hiring a staffing firm that supported its proposed rule on joint employment to review comments on that proposal.

GOOD MORNING! It’s Tuesday, Sept. 17, and this is Morning Shift, your daily tipsheet on labor and immigration news. Send tips, exclusives, and suggestions to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter at@RebeccaARainey,@tedhesson,@IanKullgren, and@TimothyNoah1.

Driving the Day

UAW STRIKE: Thousands of workers will spend a second day on picket lines outside General Motors plants nationwide as the automaker and the United Auto Workers continue to negotiate over a new four-year contract.

What’s on the table? The union said in a written statement that its members are trying to secure fair wages, affordable healthcare, job security, and “a defined path to permanent seniority for temps.” GM said Sunday that its latest offer to the UAW included $7 billion in investments, more than 5,400 jobs, wage increases over all four years of the contract, and “solutions for unallocated assembly plants in Michigan and Ohio.”

How long will it last? UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg told Morning Shift that GM has agreed to only 2 percent of the union’s contract proposals, signaling there is likely a long road ahead. “I doubt in one day they can close the gap on 98 percent of the agreement,” he said. Terry Dittes, vice president of the UAW, also seemed pessimistic. “We have many unresolved issues,” he told Bloomberg’s David Welch, “It’s not just a couple things.” Welch reports that there “are about 1,000 outstanding proposals and that there are 10 major sticking points which need to be settled” according to Dittes, “including wages for entry-level workers and treatment of temporary staffers.”

How much will it cost? According to analysts, between $50 million and $100 million daily, Mike Colias reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Stalled production could slash more than a tenth of GM’s expected third-quarter operating profit of about $3.5 billion by the weekend, although GM could make up some lost production once workers return.”

What does it mean? The strike comes at a time when other worker movements have gained momentum in the past year and a half, Dan Cornfield, a labor expert and professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University, told Morning Shift. “That usually happens when the economy improves and workers feel more secure about making demands and not fearing unemployment so much.”

The strike, he said, may encourage more labor activism in the unionized manufacturing sector, which “is also extremely important politically” because it’s concentrated mostly in the upper midwestern part of the United States, which delivered the presidency to President Donald Trump in 2016. “Historically that has not been the natural base of the party,” Cornfield notes, “and a lot of the very pro-business elements of the party are probably sympathetic with General Motors and not the UAW workers.”

Trump’s tough stance on trade policy has complicated auto manufacturers’ financial decisions. CEO Mary Barra cited Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum when she announced 14,000 job cuts last year, which cost the company about $1 billion in 2018. In March Trump demanded that GM and local union leaders reopen the Lordstown, Ohio plant, even if that meant selling it. (GM is not one of the four automakers that the Trump Justice Department, somewhat bizarrely, is investigating for striking a voluntary agreement with California regulators to reduce emissions.)

What will Trump do? The president told reporters Monday on the South Lawn that “Federal mediation is always possible” between GM and the UAW. “Hopefully they’ll be able to work out the GM strike quickly,” he added. “We don’t want General Motors building plants outside of this country … We’re very strong on that.”

UAW PROBE NOT IMPACTING NEGOTIATIONS... Despite the arrest Thursday of UAW executive board member Vance Pearson over money laundering and fraud charges in connection with a federal embezzlement probe into the union, Pearson, freed on bond, was present at the union’s negotiations with General Motors Sunday, Robert Snell and Kalea Hall report for The Detroit News.

He appeared to be trying, unsuccessfully, to keep his profile low. “Are you Vance Pearson?” a Detroit News reporter asked him. “No, ma’am,” he replied. Pearson “is not a member of the UAW-GM national bargaining team,” according to Snell and Hall, and did not vote on the strike. More from The Detroit News.

Immigration

H-1B SPOUSE WORK PERMITS: DHS said in acourt filing Monday that it doesn’t expect to publish a proposed rule to rescind work authorization for spouses of H-1B visa holders any sooner than spring 2020.

The department laid out the timeline in an attempt to convince the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to postpone Sept. 27 oral arguments in a related legal challenge brought by a tech worker advocacy group. Although spring 2020 may seem a long way off, DHS contends it’s moving ahead with the rulemaking process.

The plaintiffscountered that proceedings have been delayed too long already. Oral argument in the case was scheduled originally for March 2017. “Meanwhile,” they wrote, “American workers continue to suffer from increased competition from foreign labor.”

Roughly 121,000 spouses have beengranted work authorization through the program since it began in 2015. Ananalysis earlier this year by the libertarian Cato Institute found the rollback “would result in substantial costs to the U.S. economy.”

NLRB

MORE CONFLICT OF INTEREST CONCERNS AT THE NLRB: Top labor Democrats are raising more conflict of interest concerns over the NLRB’s latest attempt to establish a more business-friendly doctrine on joint employment (i.e., one that would more strictly limit the circumstances under which a business can be held liable for labor violations committed by its franchisees and contractors).

As the agency moves forward with its joint employer rulemaking, Ian MacDougall reports for ProPublica that Democratic Reps. Bobby Scott (Va.) and Frederica Wilson (Fla.) say the NLRB violated ethics rules by hiring a staffing company that supported the proposal to supply temporary lawyers and paralegals to review public comments about it. Two trade associations that the company belongs to and uses to recruit temps submitted comments supporting the rule change, according to MacDougall.

“In essence, the NLRB hired temps whose bosses have a stake in the outcome to review and potentially summarize the public comments,” he writes. Scott and Wilson say the move “poses a conflict of interest under federal contracting rules.” NLRB Chairman John Ring “assured Scott and Wilson, in a March 22 letter, that the contractor (Ardelle hadn’t yet been selected) would not be involved in ‘any substantive, deliberative review of the comments but will be limited to sorting comments into categories in preparation for their substantive review.’” More from MacDougall.

2020 Watch

WARREN SCORES WORKING FAMILIES PARTY ENDORSEMENT: The labor-aligned Working Families Party announced its support for Elizabeth Warren’s bid for president Monday, notching a key endorsement for the Massachusetts senator and a blow to her progressive rival Bernie Sanders, who won the party’s support in 2015, POLITICO’s Ian Kullgren, Holly Otterbein and Alex Thompson report.

“Warren trounced Sanders in a vote of Working Family Party members, garnering 61 percent of the vote compared to Sanders’ 36 percent,” they write. Maurice Mitchell, the national party director, said in a written statement: “Senator Warren strikes fear into the hearts of the robber barons who rigged the system, and offers hope to millions of working people who have been shut out of our democracy and economy.”

The endorsement is a loss for Sanders as he sells himself as a voice for the working class. “People familiar with the WFP endorsement process said that they expected a closer vote but that Warren and her team had impressed members with organizing muscle that put a premium on engaging members, asking for feedback, and building relationships.” More from POLITICO.

OTHER 2020 READS: “UFCW announces 2020 candidate forums on working issues,” from POLITICO

At the Border

DHS OFFICIALS HEAD TO TENT COURTS: Top immigration officials, including acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan, acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan, acting USCIS Director Ken Cuccinelli, and acting ICE head Matthew Albence will travel with Clay Martin, an assistant chief immigration judge, to the border town of Laredo, Texas, today to visit the tent court opened there last week. Immigration officials are opening tent-style court facilities in border cities to help process the more than 42,000 non-Mexican migrants sent to Mexico to await asylum proceedings under the “remain in Mexico“ program, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols.

Each component head will give briefings that explain how the various agencies work together in the facility, according to a DHS official. McAleenan and Morgan will then meet Trump in San Diego.

What We're Reading

— “Pentagon puts brakes on 3 border barrier projects because of cost,” from POLITICO

— “Trump launches ambitious play to turn New Mexico red,” from POLITICO

— “Trump’s Asylum Policies Sent Him Back to Mexico. He Was Kidnapped Five Hours Later By a Cartel.” from Vice News

— “Tent courtrooms open to process migrants waiting in Mexico,” from The Associated Press

— “Beazley offering Title IX sexual misconduct liability cover,” from Business Insurance

— “AP Explains: Why auto workers went on strike against GM,” from The Associated Press

— “Judiciary chairman throws cold water on Kavanaugh impeachment,” from POLITICO

THAT’S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT!