| | | | |  | | By Nick Niedzwiadek | Presented by Charter Communications | | | | PUBLIC PENSION WARNING SIGNS: A few weeks back we reported on how 2022's extended Wall Street slump was likely to hit public pension funds in a meaningful way. Now there's an increasing body of evidence that is indeed coming to pass and administrators are starting to have to confront a tricky reality and game out how to proceed forward. The California Public Employees' Retirement System reported an annual loss for the first time since the Great Recession to the tune of nearly $30 billion, the Los Angeles Times reports . Likewise the much-smaller Idaho Public Employee Retirement System posted a negative 9.5 percent return, its fourth-worst year in its history . All in all the aggregate funded status — the measure of a fund's assets and investments relative to the amount of money promised to beneficiaries — of state and municipal pension funds is shaping up to take its largest one-year hit since 2009 , according to a new report from the nonprofit Equable Institute. The organization estimates that figure has stumbled to 77.9 percent from 84.8 percent in 2021. Put another way, the delta of unfunded pension liabilities increased close to half a trillion dollars in one year. As dispiriting as that is, it remains a far cry from the damage of the Great Recession. According to Equable, aggregate funded status cratered to 62.4 percent in 2009 from 92.3 percent just two years prior. That shock led to a number of changes across the public pension sector, and among the lawmakers they answer to, to better withstand blows like this one. Still there were signs that risk was creeping back into investment portfolios, such as by wading into crypto or borrowing money to invest , right as the market soured. How pension funds weather this tumult will have huge knock-on effects, not only for the retirees and future ones, but also for the financial surety of everything from local fire departments to state governments — and, ultimately, taxpayers writ large. GOOD MORNING. It's Monday, July 25. Welcome back to Weekly Shift, your go-to tipsheet on employment and immigration news. Send feedback, tips, exclusives to emueller@politico.com and nniedzwiadek@politico.com . Follow us on Twitter at @eleanor_mueller and @nickniedz .
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| | | WEED WATCH: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer finally unveiled last week a long-gestating bill to lift the federal prohibition on marijuana that includes a number of labor-centric provisions in its nearly-300 pages that caught our eyes. Drug testing: The legislation narrows the ability for federal agencies to subject employees to cannabis drug testing. It would require an agency leader to detail how a given job has "significant involvement in national security or the protection of life, property, public health, or public safety" and necessitates screening for marijuana. Worker safety: The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act tasks the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — along with the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health and Department of Health and Human Services — with issuing guidance on protections for cannabis workers and certain training requirements on employers. It would also allow cannabis companies to apply for training grants administered by OSHA and authorizes the labor secretary to distribute up to $15 million over five years to nonprofit organizations for community-based education for industry workers.
| | | | The Women Rule series brings together rising stars, accomplished professionals, and women at the pinnacle of their careers to inform, empower and connect women across diverse sectors and career levels. Attendance to our quarterly in-person POLITICO Women Rule meetings, is by invitation-only. Join our interest list and learn more here . | | | | | | | | SCHEDULE F ON TRUMP'S DOCKET: Allies of former President Donald Trump are formulating a blueprint to dramatically upend the federal workforce and the civil service protections that have insulated those positions, Axios reports . The goal is reportedly to clear a path to installing Trump-aligned loyalists throughout the executive branch in the belief that career staff slow-walked or otherwise hampered the former president's agendas over his four years in office. This would involve the reimposition of an additional employment category called "Schedule F" that was first rolled out in the lead-up to the 2020 election that Trump ultimately lost. (President Joe Biden swiftly rescinded the executive order upon taking office.) "They say Schedule F will finally end the 'farce' of a nonpartisan civil service that they say has been filled with activist liberals who have been undermining GOP presidents for decades." Unions and Democrats would surely fight such an order, as they vowed to do the first time around. "But Trump's advisers like their chances in a judicial system now dominated at its highest levels by conservatives."
| | | WORKER STRUGGLES HIT HEALTH CARE: Hospitals across the country are grappling with widespread staffing shortages, complicating preparations for a potential Covid-19 surge as the BA.5 subvariant drives up cases, hospital admissions and deaths, our Krista Mahr reports for Pros . Long-standing problems, worker burnout and staff turnover have grown worse as Covid-19 waves have hit health care workers again and again — and as more employees fall sick with Covid-19 themselves. How bad is it? As of July 22, hospitals in nearly 40 states reported critical staffing shortages , while hospitals in all 50 states said they expected to within a week. Related: " As health care faces nursing shortages, burned-out nurses are flocking to remote jobs ," from STAT News.
| | | | A message from Charter Communications:   | | | | | | UAW CONVENTION STARTS: The United Auto Workers kicks off its constitutional convention on Monday in Detroit. It's the first one to be held since UAW entered into a consent decree with the Department of Justice following an extensive corruption probe that led to the convictions of more than a dozen people — including two former presidents. (They were recently released from prison less than a year into their sentences .) That led the union to change how it selects its leaders by instituting direct, popular elections for its president and the rest of its executive board. So rather than having the convention serve as the coronation for leadership, UAW delegates in attendance will nominate candidates who will be subject to vetting by court-appointed monitor and then placed on a ballot sent to members later this fall . There is a vein of sentiment within parts of the union that it is badly in need of a leadership shake-up to clean up its act, which some of the prospective candidates have argued the new election format is more conducive of than the former system. A dispute over allowing retirees to run for union office is also a point of tension, as Bloomberg Law reports . Just last week the monitor, Neil Barofsky, dropped a status report that indicated UAW officials were hindering oversight and the broader effort to reform the organization through a "pattern of uncooperative and obstructive behavior". A union spokesperson said in a statement to Shift: "UAW remains committed to the process of rebuilding trust, creating robust reforms and transforming the culture of our union."
| | | | INTRODUCING POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY . | | | | | | | | PAY TRANSPARENCY: A California lawmaker has proposed a bill to require large companies to publish their pay scales, POLITICO California's Alexander Nieves reports . If enacted, thousands of companies would have to post online breakdowns of their pay rates, including by gender, race, and ethnicity. "It's very simple: You can't solve a problem where you can't see the data," state Sen. Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat who introduced the bill, told Nieves. "Hiding the data doesn't get us anywhere." Similar efforts that have cropped up elsewhere on a smaller scale have met fierce resistance from business groups and splintered Democrats. The details: The bill would apply to businesses with 250 or more employees, including about 6,000 in California that employ 6.7 million workers — more than a third of the state's workforce. But any large company with Californians on staff, regardless of where it is headquartered, would have to share pay data for its workers based in the state. LABORING IN MARYLAND POLITICS: Republican and Democratic voters in Maryland alike passed over labor officials in their respective gubernatorial primaries. Former Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez came up short, coming in second to author and entrepreneur Wes Moore in a crowded field that also featured Perez's Cabinet colleague John King. On the GOP side, Kelly Schulz — outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan's commerce chief and former labor secretary — lost to the Trump-backed Dan Cox by double digits. The contest was a bitter proxy skirmish between Trump and Hogan, who said Sunday he won't support Cox.
| | | SCOTUS TIES BIDEN'S HANDS: The Supreme Court last week denied the Biden administration's request to reinstate its immigration enforcement priorities but agreed to hear the case later this year, our Sabrina Rodriguez reports . In a 5-4 decision, the justices rejected the administration's request to stay a court order blocking the Department of Homeland Security from setting its enforcement priorities to focus more on those who pose a threat to national security and public safety. WHAT AG FOLKS ARE MONITORING: Senate negotiators have been trying to hash out an immigration agreement that could allow for more guest workers via the H-2A farmworker visa program. Proponents are framing it as a way to bring down food costs, while also making some long-sought changes in how the system operates. "Currently, year-round employers cannot use that worker visa program … It would also satisfy some goals for labor rights advocates by providing a pathway to legalization for workers who show a dedicated history of farm work," NPR reports . However, lawmakers remain apart on some key worker protections and face heat from the American Farm Bureau and anti-immigration interest groups that could ultimately doom the effort from clearing the Senate's 60-vote threshold. Our Garrett Downs has more on the state of play for Pros here . More immigration news: " Trump donors ran $27 million real estate and green card scam: feds ," from the New York Daily News.
| | A message from Charter Communications: Charter's Broadband Field Technician Apprenticeship Program provides valuable, hands-on learning opportunities—both on-the-job and in the classroom. The apprenticeship program allows employees to grow their careers at their own pace and gain in-depth industry knowledge, all at no cost to them. Investing in the success of our employees helps us build stronger connections. | | | | | | — " Hyundai subsidiary has used child labor at Alabama factory ," from Reuters. — " In booming N.Va., hotel union tries a new message: No more new hotels ," from the Washington Post. — " More job candidates are lying and cheating in their interviews. Employers are using artificial intelligence to catch them ," from Business Insider. — " Mayors ask Biden to help with influx of asylum-seekers ," from the Associated Press. — " World's Key Workers Threaten to Hit Economy Where It Will Hurt ," from Bloomberg. THAT'S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT! | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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