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. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this resolution.

The National Labor Relations Board, under President Biden, issued a final rule this past October that restores the Board's ability to consider the extent to which an employer controls the terms and conditions of someone's employment. So what does this mean?

Well, the Biden NLRB rule prevents employers from skirting accountability for complying with workplace laws. Under the Trump administration, their NLRB 2020 rule severely hampered the American worker's ability to hold employers accountable.

I reject the characterization by the chairwoman that the Trump administration rule was pro-freedom. There is nothing pro-freedom about the Trump administration rule, except for the freedom to steal wages, to exact unfair labor practices, and other violations. That is a perversion of the word ``freedom''.

A trend called fissured work has become commonplace. What does fissured work mean? Fissured work is when a company adopts a dynamic of contracting and subcontracting. Instead of hiring the workers directly, they subcontract it out. That is how they avoid responsibility for being fair to the workers.

A prime example of this is temping. Today, roughly 3.1 million Americans are employed by a temping agency. These temporary work arrangements are characterized by their short duration, and employment can range from just a handful of days to months.

So let's say a company needs to hire a front-desk receptionist and enlists the help of a staffing agency. For an individual seeking a job opportunity who may not be able to secure full-time, long-term employment, maybe as quickly as he or she would like, a temporary staffing agency may seem very enticing.

If hired, the receptionist sent out by this staffing agency would essentially be performing work on behalf of a client company that directs the employee's work but does not receive a check signed by that client company, but, rather, the staffing agency writes the check.

This common practice is one for companies to pay employees less for work than a traditional, full-time employee would receive. In addition, many times these employees have hostile or unsafe workplaces.

Now, these fissured work arrangements at temp agencies often result in a lack of clarity regarding employer responsibilities and may become challenging for workers who are interested in organizing a union to negotiate collectively or hold employers accountable for labor standards.

For that receptionist who wants to negotiate his or her pay, the conversation with the company proves difficult to have. Who do you negotiate with: the temp agency or the company?

Fissured work is unfortunately rampant, and it is critical companies are not able to evade bargaining and responsibility of workers. This is the problem that the Biden NLRB joint employer rule seeks to fix.

If a company maintains its right to control how much a worker earns and how many hours they work a week and whether they can organize, then it also must maintain its responsibility for complying with the laws that protect workers. This is common sense. This rule helps workers and protects small businesses that follow the rules.

This rule would upend the dynamic of allowing big companies to shield themselves from labor negotiations. Companies that engage in fissured employee arrangements would no longer be able to evade such responsibilities.

All companies should be held accountable irrespective of how many workers or geographically where employers are stationed.

The final rule is expected to take effect February 2024.

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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I wish that my Republican colleagues were more focused on helping and empowering workers.

I urge opposition to the joint resolution.

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