Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Legislation - Bill Introduced to Restore Repealed Executive Order

Senator Tina Smith (Minn) introduced legislation last week that would restore the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rules from the previous administration that were repealed last year. When we first read the Senator's press release, we thought "wait a minute, what?" But sure enough, there it was.

We covered the previous rules extensively on these pages, from the initial Executive Order to the Labor Department's rules to the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations) rules to the court battles that threw out a major portion of them, to the eventual demise.

Here's an extract from the Senator's press release. It reads, almost work for word, like the President Obama's Executive Order.

The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Act is based on President Obama's executive order of the same name. While the Obama-era rules were repealed in 2017, Sen. Smith's legislation would restore them. The bill would require the federal government to consider a company's history of labor law violations in awarding federal contracts to ensure that taxpayer funds don't go to companies that repeatedly violate the law. Companies with problematic records of mistreating their workers would be required to take steps to improve the treatment of workers or face the possibility of being barred from federal contracting. The bill would also ensure that workers for federal contractors receive pay stubs and aren't forced to give up their rights to go to court for sexual harassment or sexual assault. Further the bill would ensure that taxpayer funds aren't used for union-busting activity.

We can't imagine that this legislation will have any success of passing the Senate or the House, much less the President's signature.