Chamber of Commerce

OSHA took the long road to adopt a standard to address respirable crystalline silica. Although the final rule was issued in March 2016, it is being challenged by both industry and labor groups. The first says OSHA went too far, the other says OSHA didn’t go far enough. The long road, however may be coming close to end. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments last week from parties that are challenging the rule. Judges Merrick Garland, David Tatel and Karen LeCraft Henderson spent more than two hours listening to arguments from the National Stone,…
Add this to the list of absurdities from the Trump Administration: the Justice Department (DOJ) is arguing that the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers (USW) should rely on DOJ attorneys to defend an Obama-era OSHA regulation. Seriously? The rule that DOJ says it will defend on the unions' behalf was adopted by OSHA in May 2016 and concerns the reporting of injuries by employers. It is being threatened by a frivolous lawsuit brought the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Home Builders, and the National Chicken Council.  The business associations filed their lawsuit in the U.S.…
You know how opponents of paid sick leave and raising the minimum wage always cite resistance in the business community? Well, in turns out that such resistance might be closer to a marketing gimmick rather than a genuine reflection of employer sentiment. Yesterday, the Center for Media and Democracy released a leaked internal poll of 1,000 top-level business executives nationwide, many of whom are members of their local or state chambers of commerce. Here’s what the poll, which was commissioned by the Council of State Chambers and conducted by LuntzGlobal, found: 80 percent supported raising…
The US Chamber of Commerce had a quaint little game on its website last month, complete with a YouTube video with fake sportscasters. The PR campaign called "Regulatory Madness" keyed off the annual NCAA's basketball tournament we know as March Madness. The cutesy idea was for business people to use the Chamber's pick of the 16 most "maddening" Obama Administration regulations, and fill in brackets to ultimately chose the most "maddening" one of all. They called it their "not-so-pretty Sweet Sixteen." Their "top picks" included financial, health care and environmental regulations, such…