Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under the Rule Submitted By the National Labor Relations Board Relating to ``Standard for Determining Joint Employer Status''

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeSAULNIER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and say hello to the Chairwoman.

When workers come together to bargain collectively for better wages, hours, and working conditions, workers, families, and our entire economy succeeds. However, they can only negotiate for these things if, in keeping with the principles of the National Labor Relations Act, all parties with power to control their employment are required to be at the table.

The Biden administration's joint employer rule makes sure that that is possible, and we should be supporting it, not trying to undo it.

If someone is hired by a subcontractor and that subcontractor has no ability to change the pay and hours of its employees because they are predetermined by the prime contractor, it might understandably refuse to bargain over those issues. Without the prime contractor at the table, these workers are denied their right to negotiate over these fundamental parts of their jobs.

The Trump-era joint employer rule allowed companies to control the workplace like an employer but dodge the legal responsibilities of one. The Biden administration's updated rule will set the law back on track, ensuring that if a company controls a worker's essential terms and conditions of employment they are accountable to answering to those workers directly.

As a former union member and the current ranking Democrat on the House Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee of the Education and the Workforce Committee and a member of the Labor Caucus, I have seen firsthand that labor unions can be key to improving working conditions, pay, and a worker's voice.

When workers succeed, America succeeds.

I am also a former small business owner, and I appreciate that, as part of its due diligence when putting this updated rule together, the NLRB did an analysis and concluded that it would not have an undue economic impact on small businesses.

I encourage my colleagues to vote against this resolution which would harm workers by overturning the Biden administration's joint employer rule.

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