LPA Inc., the Society
for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and two
small businesses have joined forces and filed a lawsuit against the U.S.
Department of Labor in an attempt to stop regulatory changes that would allow
states to use their unemployment compensation funds for paid parental leaves. Â On June 12th, 2000, the DOL
released the final rule, "Birth and Adoption Unemployment Compensation
(BAA-UC), that allows states to pay unemployment compensation benefits to parents
following the birth or adoption of a child. Â
For more details see "Able
and Available to Work"
The Plaintiffs in the case are the LPA, Inc., representing policy interests of human resources executives from over 200 leading corporations in the United States; SHRM, an organization of more than 140,000 human resource professionals; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, described as the largest business federation in the world; and two small companies of nine and ten employees each -- CounterPulsation, Inc., a high tech provider of medical equipment and Danneman´s Auto Service, Inc., that services and repairs cars.
What Are They
Fighting Against?
This coalition thinks that only Congress should be able to make such a fundamental change to how states use their unemployment compensation funds.
In the lawsuit, they claim the Regulation violates the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) and the Social Security Act (SSA) because these Acts authorize payment of unemployment compensation benefits to individuals who are unemployed not to people who voluntarily choose to leave work.
They also claim that the Rule and the Regulation upset the balance that Congress tried to strike between employees and employers, particularly small business employers, in the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Â At that time, Congress said that employers were not required to provide paid leave and small businesses (under 50 employees) were not required to provide leave at all.
In the complaint, the Rule and Regulation are deemed arbitrary and capricious, and therefore violate the Administration Procedures Act. Â They are also in violation of the Regulatory Flexibility Act because the DOL failed to consult with small business.
What Do They See as
the Consequences of the Regulation?
The coalition is acting quickly to have the Regulation and the Rule withdrawn. The DOL foresees that two states will enact BAA-UC legislation in the coming year and eleven more states will follow over the next five years. Â The coalition thinks that states will become locked into using unemployment compensation funds when time and money could be better spent on designing and implementing birth and adoption programs based upon disability insurance or other funding mechanisms.
They also fear that employers will be forced to pay higher unemployment compensation taxes and that absenteeism will rise, forcing employers to use temporary workers thus increasing the costs of administration and training. Finally, they anticipate some fraudulent behavior that will force employers to spend time and money evaluating and monitoring requests.
The National
Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
announced on July 4th, 2000 that they would be backing Al
Gore in the coming presidential election. Â
Together they represent over 3.5 million teachers in the United
States. Â
NEA Annual Meeting in Chicago and AFT Convention in
Philadelphia
In a secret ballot,
over 7,000 of the 9,000 delegates to the NEA Representative Assembly voted to
endorse Vice President Al Gore as presidential candidate. Â In a much less formal process at the AFT´s
annual convention, a special order of business calling on the union to endorse
Vice President Al Gore for the presidency was enthusiastically met by the
delegates. The AFT Executive Council had voted unanimously Oct. 5, 1999 to
endorse Gore. Â Nat LaCour, AFT´s
Executive Vice President, told delegates that Al Gore has consistently been "a
friend of education and organized labor" and that he has supported the AFT in
such issues as reducing class size, opposing vouchers to repairing rundown
school buildings and giving workers the right to union representation. Â LaCour asked delegates to go one step
further than voting for Al Gore by being involved in the union´s election
efforts.
Speaking to AFT
delegates on July 5th, Gore promised teachers smaller class sizes,
more professional training and development, modernizing of the schools by
connecting classrooms to the Internet and the training needed to use the new
technologies. Â He will not support
private school vouchers that would take money out of the public school system.
The new AFT teacher salary survey  (available at: http://www.aft.org/research/survey99/index.html) shows that teachers´ pay continues to lag behind other comparable professions such as engineers and computer scientists.  A starting teacher earns 30% less than the average salary offered to a new college graduate. Recruiting and retaining talented people to give every child the education they deserve means that teachers must be paid competitive salaries.