Biden’s DOL Proposes Plaintiffs’ Attorney Giveaway At The Expense Of Jobs
WASHINGTON, DC – Club for Growth Foundation submitted comments to the Department of Labor opposing the proposed gig-worker rule to the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). Timothy Taylor authored the comments. Taylor is a partner at Holland & Knight and previously he served as Deputy Solicitor of Labor at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), where he oversaw a wide variety of litigation and rulemaking, including rulemaking under the FLSA.
Club for Growth Foundation President David McIntosh said, “This proposed rule would be a large step backwards for our economy, eliminate millions of jobs, and be a massive giveaway for plaintiffs’ attorneys. At a time when the US economy is in dire straits, with record high inflation, the last things that Americans need are decreased employment opportunities and frivolous lawsuits resulting in higher prices. With this proposed rule, the DOL is forcing American workers to accept the dictates of big government, against their own wishes, and is taking action that likely has a disproportionate impact on minorities, which stands in stark contrast to the Biden Administration’s public push for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Club for Growth Foundation has encouraged the submission of comments against this harmful rule, and we’ve engaged labor law expert Timothy Taylor to author the Foundation’s comments.”
Click here to read the comments.
Key Excerpts:
- The Labor Department’s proposed rule would do tremendous damage to the U.S. economy and harm all its participants: businesses, consumers, and workers, including women and minorities. Additionally, the rule is counter to the Biden Administration’s policies of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Instead of enhancing opportunities, the proposed rule will likely disproportionately reduce opportunities for women and minorities in the modern economy.
- The proposed rule would revert the Labor Department to the old open-ended, unweighted test. That is problematic for several reasons.
- But the six-factor test as proposed is still much duller than the current rule. The proposed rule would provide little guidance to private actors, the Labor Department (including WHD’s enforcement staff and the Solicitor’s Office), or the courts regarding how the factors should be weighed against each other.
- Notably, the proposed rule in both its preamble and in its economic analysis, utterly fails to consider the ramifications of injecting uncertainty into this rapidly growing area of the economy. Additionally, as previously mentioned, the negative impacts of this uncertainty are heightened by the current poor state of the US economy.
- Instead, in a new chapter to the oldest story known to Washington DC, the principal beneficiaries of the proposed rule would be plaintiffs’ attorneys—and the Department’s own enforcement staff, which will have maximum discretion. The Labor Department’s proposed formulation would foster extractive litigation.