| | | | |  | | By Nick Niedzwiadek | Presented by Kroger | With help from Eleanor Mueller
| | | GAME ON: Officials with the National Labor Relations Board this afternoon will count the votes in a potentially watershed union election involving the video game industry. Quality assurance testers employed by Raven Software — known for its work on the "Call of Duty" franchise — are seeking to organize under the Game Workers Alliance, a nascent union affiliated with the Communications Workers of America. Voting was conducted by mail over the better part of the past month, and ballots were due back by Friday. The potential unit is pretty small — approximately 21 workers — and just a fraction of the Wisconsin-based studio's workforce. QA testers are an oft-overlooked part of game development. They do the grunt work of rooting out bugs and potential problems in the weeks and months before games are released publicly. While the idea of being paid to play video games sounds appealing, the reality of these jobs is that they're typically among the lowest paid parts of the team and can have demanding workloads finding and cataloging issues within a project's timeframe. As an industry, game development falls somewhere between Hollywood and the tech sector. Big-name companies, like Raven's parent Activision Blizzard, are multibillion-dollar operations and have the lofty financial projections and Wall Street expectations that come in tow. Studios can shutter with little notice, leaving workers and their families scrambling and local governments with wasted tax incentives — as chronicled in the New York Times best-seller "Press Reset." Like in Silicon Valley, unions have historically struggled to gain traction at video game studios, but organizers have tried to make inroads as conversations about the industry's work conditions gained public attention in recent years. For its part, Activision Blizzard has opposed the organizing effort and undertaken a number of changes that have drawn the ire of union organizers. Those include: arguing that the vote should not be limited to the QA employees (which the NLRB rejected); aggressively countering organizers' message through internal channels and in-person meetings; restructuring the studio, including members of the QA team; and announcing that more than 1,100 testers across the company would get a pay increase and be converted to full-time employees — a boost not extended to those at Raven Software. "We respect and believe in the right of all employees to decide whether or not to support or vote for a union," an Activision spokesperson said in a statement Sunday. The spokesperson also reiterated the company's position that "in order to have the most collaborative workplace," the vote should have spanned a broader set of employees at Raven Software. GOOD MORNING. It's Monday, May 23. Welcome back to Weekly Shift, your go-to tipsheet on employment and immigration news. Send feedback, tips and exclusives to emueller@politico.com and nniedzwiadek@politico.com. Follow us on Twitter at @eleanor_mueller and @nickniedz.
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Learn more about the opportunities made possible by the Kroger Family of Companies. | | | | | | THE WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PIPELINE PROBLEM: As inflation continues to spike, the White House and Democrats in Congress are turning their attention to one of its least-talked-about causes: lagging workforce development. For years, the U.S. has spent far less on training its workers and done so much less effectively than most other wealthy nations, which is contributing to the supply chain woes caused by the pandemic, Eleanor reports. With two job openings for every worker seeking employment in March, economists say one reason for the mismatch is a failure to effectively prepare workers for in-demand roles. Many of the shortfalls are in sectors particularly crucial to a healthy supply chain, including trucking, manufacturing, railroads and ports. If policymakers can't remedy the situation, labor and education experts warn that it could permanently hobble the U.S. economy and impede its ability to compete with other economic powers like China — particularly given how long it can take for changes to produce results.
| | | CONFIRMATION WATCH: The Senate HELP Committee on Wednesday is expected to take up the nomination of Kalpana Kotagal to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, along with three other nominees to positions at the departments of Education and Health and Human Services. The vote comes two weeks after Kotagal's confirmation hearing and — barring any hiccups — puts her on track to clear the Senate ahead of the expiration of Trump-appointee Janet Dhillon's term on July 1. In other confirmation news: The Senate last week voted 50-45 to confirm Elizabeth Watson as the Labor Department's assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental affairs. Watson's nomination was first announced back in April 2021, and GOP Sens. Richard Burr (N.C.) and Susan Collins (Maine) joined Democrats to confirm the former House aide.
| | | | HAPPENING WEDNESDAY—A WOMEN RULE TALK ON THE MIDTERMS : Join POLITICO'S Women Rule for a conversation with the women running the midterm campaigns and how they are shaping messaging and strategy for their candidates. The program will look into what a win for either party could mean for access to reproductive health care, economic advancement of women, and how the final stages of the Covid-19 pandemic are managed. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You'll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day's biggest stories.
| | | NLRB LOSES FEDERALIST APPEAL: A federal appeals court overruled the NLRB's determination that the head of the Federalist, a conservative media company, violated employees' labor rights by jokingly tweeting to send them "back to the salt mine" if they organized, Bloomberg Law reports. "The NLRB ignored crucial context, such as the labor environment at the Federalist, the subjects that the magazine publishes commentary on, and what its workers thought about the tweet, according to the panel," Bloomberg reports. For court watchers: The Third Circuit panel was composed of judges appointed by Republican presidents. The case could have implications in other instances where the NLRB has taken action in response to social media activity, such as one involving Tesla's Elon Musk. SECRET SERVICE LEANS INTO 'UGLY AMERICAN' STEREOTYPE: The U.S. Secret Service on Friday confirmed that two of its employees have been "placed on administrative leave" following an "off-duty incident" during President Joe Biden's trip to Asia this week, our Quint Forgey reports. Local police stated that a member of the security team was accused of drunkenly assaulting a South Korean citizen, Reuters reported . The arrest came a day before Biden arrived in the South Korean capital and the arrested employee was working as part of the president's advance security team.
| | | FIRST IN SHIFT: The nursing shortage is one of the worst seen in decades, a report from the left-leaning Center for American Progress found. "Employment levels for registered nurses declined by 3 percent between 2020 and 2021, the largest decline in at least 20 years," the authors wrote. "Fewer nurses means that each nurse must care for more patients, which can lead to errors and reduced ability to monitor patients; conversely, adequate staffing levels can result in reduced mortality, shorter hospital stays, and reduced incidence of adverse patient events such as infection." "An acute symptom of the shortage is the rise of travel nurses — registered nurses who are contracted to work short stints at understaffed hospitals across the country for double, triple, or quadruple their usual pay. Travel nursing grew by 35 percent in 2020 and was estimated to grow an additional 40 percent by the end of 2021." One reason: "The higher education system is training too few nurses," the report found. It recommends policies that would change this, including by increasing the number of nurse educators; creating more clinical placements for student nurses; and improving campus facilities and equipment. ALSO FIRST IN SHIFT: Worker advocacy group United for Respect is taking out full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal and Seattle Times ahead of Amazon's shareholder meeting on May 25. The ads are tied to a bid by warehouse worker Daniel Olayiwola to bring a shareholder proposal seeking to curb the company's use of productivity metrics that require employees to handle a designated number of products per shift. "Make sure Bezos, the board, and Amazon shareholders know we expect them to stand with Daniel and Amazon workers on this important issue," the ad states. Amazon critics and some of its workers have cited that system as contributing to the rate of injuries at its warehouses. "For too long, Amazon executives have made billions prioritizing speed over safety," Bianca Agustin, United for Respect's corporate accountability director, said in a statement to Shift. "People who work at Amazon are suffering under exploitative and dangerous workplace standards, which contribute to the company's astronomical injury rate."
| | | | DON'T MISS DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED: Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | NLRB MOVES TO FORCE STARBUCKS TO BARGAINING TABLE: A regional official with the NLRB is seeking to order Starbucks to recognize and bargain with a union at a store outside of Buffalo, despite organizers' losing an election there last year. Linda Leslie filed an amended complaint with an administrative law judge arguing that some of Starbucks' actions as part of its anti-union campaign were so egregious "there is only a slight possibility of erasing their effects and conducting a fair election." Workers at the Hamburg store, shorthanded using its location on Camp Road, had voted 12-8 against organizing under Workers United back in December. The complaint argues that the union authorization cards signed by workers there are a better reflection of their wishes. The Thursday filing, first reported by HuffPost, updates a complaint issued earlier in the month that alleged a litany of labor law violations. Starbucks has denied the NLRB's claims. "We believe the allegations contained in the filing by the NLRB Regional Director are false, and we look forward to presenting our evidence when the allegations are adjudicated," a spokesperson said in an email. CALL CENTER WORKERS BACK ON STRIKE: Employees at Maximus, the largest federal call center contractor, are beginning a two-day strike on Monday at a pair of locations. The work-stoppage at the call centers in Bogalusa, La., and Hattiesburg, Miss., follow a one-day strike in March, timed to the anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act. The workers handle Medicare and ACA-related service calls and have sought higher pay and lower health care costs — concerns the company has said it's taken steps to address. The effort has gotten the attention of several key lawmakers, including Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), among others.
| | | | A message from Kroger:   | | | | | | BIDEN LOSES ON TITLE 42: "A federal judge on Friday blocked the Biden administration's move to lift Title 42, a Trump-era policy used to expel more than one million migrants at the southern border," our Myah Ward and Jonathan Lemire report. "Louisiana U.S. District Judge Robert R. Summerhays, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, ruled that the restrictions must stay in place until a lawsuit by 24 states … is resolved in the courts." Why the W.H. is in a bind: " POLITICO-Harvard poll: Majority of Americans support continued migrant expulsions under Title 42," from POLITICO. MORE IMMIGRATION NEWS: "DHS concerned it may need $2B to deal with migrant surge at border, documents show," from NBC News.
| | | — "Federal contract workers lose millions to bureaucratic fumbles," from The Washington Post. — "Teen Babysitters Are Charging $30 an Hour Now, Because They Can," from The Wall Street Journal. — " A SpaceX flight attendant said Elon Musk exposed himself and propositioned her for sex, documents show. The company paid $250,000 for her silence," from Business Insider. — "Architects Draft a New Blueprint for a Labor Movement," from Bloomberg. — " Some Minority Workers, Tired of Workplace Slights, Say They Prefer Staying Remote," from The Wall Street Journal. — "Compensation Is Becoming an Even Bigger Headache in the Remote-Work Era," from Bloomberg Businessweek. — "The truckers who keep our world moving," from the Financial Times. — "How goods made with forced labor end up in your local American store," from NPR. THAT'S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT!
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