The Obama administration has used its regulatory powers to enact restrictions on worker choice that Congress declined to enact in legislation. Congress, write Trey Kovacs and John Berlau, can protect worker choice and reclaim its authority to set policy by using the power of the purse to defund these policies. Such policies include the Ambush Election Rule, which “drastically reduces the time frame between the filing of a petition and the date on which a representation election is held”; the Joint Employer Rule, which overturned a clear standard for defining a joint employer relationship in favor of “an extremely broad and vague definition under which companies may be held liable for labor violations committed by other employers”; the Fiduciary Rule, whose vague mandate that fiduciaries act in savers’ best interest will impose a hefty price tag on an already regulated industry and risk depriving low- and moderate-income savers of personalized financial advice; and the Overtime Rule, whose attempt to expand overtime pay will likely be offset in ways that are inconvenient and costly to workers.
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