Last summer, President Biden told the American public, “Bidenomics is just another way of saying restoring the American Dream.” Unfortunately for American families, the economic uncertainty resulting from Bidenomics has been an obstacle to pursuing that dream.
With their trillions in deficit spending and cost-increasing policies, the Inflation Reduction Act and American Rescue Plan Act have loomed large in Biden’s agenda. But a growing list of harmful agency actions warrant public attention.
Just in time for the 2024 election cycle when union leaders look to direct billions in spending on Biden and Bidenomics policies, his agencies are advancing anti-worker choice regulations that bolster the power of union leaders and increase top-down economic control. Three of the newest labor actions bear particular mention.
First, on October 26, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board published a final “joint employer” rule. Like the Obama-era Browning-Ferris joint employer standard, the new rule will allow the NLRB to end the independent status of small businesses operating as franchises, vendors and contractors to other companies by forcing them into joint control with typically larger businesses.
This means entrepreneurs will lose the ability to open their franchise stores like a McDonald’s or Meineke auto shop. It also means many small mom-and-pop businesses like plumbing, baking, accounting and cleaning can’t perform mutually beneficial services for other businesses without being slammed by costly new regulations, legal threats and even targeted unionization efforts — not to mention the loss of their American Dream to have an independent business in the first place.
In other words, more than 750,000 franchises and even more small businesses serving as contractors and vendors are now under threat, as are tens of millions of workers. The similar 2015 Browning-Ferris joint employer rule was estimated to increase costs by more than $33 billion and lead to 376,000 lost jobs for franchises, meaning the new rule in 2024 will be even more costly.
Next, on January 10, the Labor Department published a final independent contractor rule that modifies the subfactors used in Labor’s “economic realities” test to create as many roadblocks toward independent contractor careers as Labor can without legislation.
With more than 70 million people performing freelance work as full-time self-employment careers or as a side income, millions of Americans again face a new barrier to their dreams. This means reduced employment for future small business entrepreneurs who start as an independent contractor before growing a thriving business, working mothers who want to continue their careers as they raise children, and even people with disabilities who find the regulatory requirements and rigidity of traditional employment too problematic to work through.
Finally, on December 22, the Defense Department, General Services Administration and NASA released a joint rule mandating that all federal construction projects exceeding $35 million in costs must use project labor agreements. The agreements, essentially a form of collective bargaining contracts, drive government agencies to award labor unions construction projects at the expense of non-union labor.
The result is significantly higher costs and slower completion times. Why? Construction projects are no longer competitively bid, and unions, which have less than 12 percent membership in the U.S. construction labor force, can subsidize their own bottom lines at the expense of taxpayers and to the exclusion of non-union construction firms.
These major regulations have lots of company. There is an NLRB Cemex decision jeopardizing the right to secret ballot union elections for workers, a costly new Labor overtime rule, and an “ambush elections” rule that severely limits the ability of employers to communicate with their workers about unionization or ensure election rules are followed.
This Bidenomics labor agenda has already emboldened union leaders to organize strikes and walkouts in the railway, port, film, healthcare and other industries, knowing that President Biden supports limiting worker choice on their behalf. And ironically, the actions are also often partly in response to the fears union workers have about their economic security, like all Americans.
As Biden doubles down in 2024 on earning his self-acclaimed title as the “most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history,” Americans should instead ask him and other candidates to end Bidenomics and commit to policies that expand worker choice and flexibility as they seek the American Dream.
