Week Ending April 20, 2018

  

  • House Committee Marks Up Punitive Farm Bill
  • Senate Fends Off Attempt to Erode the NLRA
  • House Abandons Effort to Privatize Air Traffic Control

House Committee Marks Up Punitive Farm Bill 

The House Agriculture Committee abandoned its long-held commitment to bipartisanship in passing a farm bill (H.R. 2) that slashes $23 billion in nutrition support to needy families, seniors, and children; imposes harsh new work requirements; removes state flexibility; and would likely privatize many SNAP (food stamps) services. The bill passed on a party-line vote.  AFSCME strongly opposed it. H.R. 2 could be considered on the House floor as early as the week of May 14.  The Senate Agriculture Committee is working on its own bipartisan version, and does not support the work requirements and other harmful changes found in H.R.2. 

What You Need to Know:  House Chairman Michael Conaway (R-TX) advanced a bill specifically designed to meet the political goal of cutting people from welfare programs and creating punitive new work requirements.  H.R. 2 eliminates broad-based categorical eligibility, an option used by states to raise SNAP’s income-eligibility cutoffs to align with state rules for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), so that working families do not face a benefit cliff as they struggle to move away from assistance. In addition to reducing nutrition assistance, this change creates more administrative burdens for states and beneficiaries in addition to reducing nutrition assistance.  Eliminating categorical eligibility would result in appoximately 265,000 children losing access to paid meals at school. Overall,  H.R. 2 would result in 1 million households and 2 million people losing nutrition assistance.

The bill shifts SNAP resources away from food assistance and into a new job training program that could be privatized.  The bill requires non-disabled adults without dependents to either work 20 hours a week or to be enrolled in a qualified training program.  Currently, participation in training programs is optional, and most SNAP participants are already working. Further, states now have the flexibility to request waivers, particularly for areas of high unemployment. Under the bill, the work requirement also would apply to older people, expanding the age of those required to work from 50 to 59.  The new work requirement would apply to approximately 7.4 million people monthly, requiring approximately 3 million training slots each month.  States would be given two years to ramp up, and would get $15 billion for training, but the funding would average just $30 per participant per month, much less than what would be needed.

Senate Fends Off Attempt to Erode the NLRA

AFSCME and labor partners applied a full court press in the Senate this week as legislation exempting tribal enterprises from adhering to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) failed to garner the 60 votes necessary to move forward.  The Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act (S. 140) failed by a vote of 55 to 41. Seven Democrats and one independent voted in favor of the motion, and one Republican joined Democrats to oppose it.  The House passed a similar bill earlier in the year. 

What You Need to Know:  While supporting the principle of tribal sovereignty, it should not be used to deny workers their collective bargaining rights and freedom of association, especially in instances where they are working for a commercial operation that competes with other businesses. The National Labor Relations Board has considered tribal-labor disputes on a case-by-case basis to balance labor rights and tribal sovereignty.

House Abandons Effort to Privatize Air Traffic Control 

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leaders introduced a long-term renewal of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) programs (H.R. 4). The bill does not contain a proposed controversial provision to privatize air traffic control operations, which is strongly opposed by AFSCME.  Committee Chairman Bill Shuster’s (R-PA) efforts to spin off air traffic control has once again failed to gather enough support to move forward, but the delay has forced the FAA to operate under a series of stopgap renewals.  AFSCME worked with other unions representing FAA workers to stem support for the privatization scheme, conducting more than 30 lobby meetings with congressional staff, and working with leaders in Congress to outline the harm such schemes cause to workers and public services.

What You Need to Know:  The legislation introduced last week reauthorizes the FAA through fiscal year 2023.  The bill would also establish a remote air traffic control tower pilot program, modify the FAA’s safety certification procedures, require new regulations and studies on drones, and introduce new consumer protections for commercial airline passengers.  The legislation is expected to be considered by the House the week of April 23, but it may face intense debate and contentious amendments.  H.R. 4 differs in a few significant ways from the Senate-passed FAA bill, S.1405. Those differences will need to be remedied before the September 30 deadline, once it passes the House as expected.

Sign Up to Receive the Weekly Report and Action Alerts via Email and Become an AFSCME e-Activist!!!

In an effort to move toward electronic transmission which will allow us to put important federal legislative updates in your hands sooner, we urge you to sign up to receive the Federal Legislative Report via your email address.

Please go to www.afscme.org/join and check the "Federal Legislative Report" box under subscriptions on the bottom of the page.

Get the AFSCME Legislative Report delivered via email by signing up here.

Thank you!

You will begin receiving the AFSCME Legislative Report via email.