Quick fix

BACK TO BUSINESS ON BUILD BACK BETTER: Congress returns this week for what lawmakers hope will be their last vote series before Christmas — but they’ve got a lot of work to do to make that happen.

Looming large: Senate consideration of President Joe Biden’s $1.7 trillion social spending bill, which contains many of the work-related priorities he campaigned on: paid family and medical leave, child care, pro-union provisions and more.

Democrats finished meeting last week with the Senate parliamentarian, who decides which parts of the bill are eligible for budget reconciliation under the Byrd rule. The reconciliation process, which allows passage of spending-related legislation, will enable the party to clear the package without any Republican support.

But their work is far from over. This week, bipartisan meetings with the parliamentarian begin. The Senate HELP and Finance Committees released the text of their updated portions of the spending bill on Saturday, when they provided them to Republicans and CBO. Lawmakers made only minor changes to the language the House passed, a committee aide told Shift, such as making it more clear that faith-based child care providers are eligible for funding.

In the meantime, Democrats must keep the messaging for their prize bill on track as record-high inflation threatens to jeopardize public support. Friday delivered a double-whammy on that front when the Labor Department revealed a 39-year-high in price increases and CBO released a Republican-requested report estimating the impacting of BBB if its programs were all made permanent.

RELATED: “Soaring inflation could hamper Biden’s effort to narrow wealth, racial disparities,” from your host

What we’ll be tracking, as we wait for news out of the parliamentarian’s office: The verdict on paid family and medical leave, which still faces some opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) but has the adamant support of some of Senate Democrats’ heaviest hitters, as Morning Shift reported last week.

We’re also interested to see what happens with the union-related provisions: namely, language that would empower the National Labor Relations Board to levy fines on employers who violated labor law. Speaking of…

FIRST IN SHIFT: The anti-union Workers Fairness Institute will launch a six-figure digital ad campaign today decrying the NLRB section of the legislation as “cruel” and likely to “destroy small businesses.” The ads, which implore Democratic senators to oppose the language, will run in D.C. and battleground states.

GOOD MORNING. It’s Monday, Dec. 13, and this is Morning Shift, your weekly tipsheet on employment and immigration news, where we hope you enjoyed your commute today — whatever that may have been. Send tips, exclusives and suggestions to [email protected]; follow me on Twitter at @eleanor_mueller.

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On the Hill

PUTTING A PRICE ON A PERMANENT CTC: Making the expanded Child Tax Credit permanent could cost almost $1.6 trillion over 10 years, according to an analysis conducted by the Joint Committee on Taxation at the request of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Recap: Congress expanded the tax credits as part of the American Rescue Plan, allowing parents to deduct up to $3,600 for each child under age 6 and $3,000 those ages 6 through 17. They also made it refundable, so low-income Americans — who might not have had enough income to benefit from the full credit — could still receive the entire amount in the form of a refund.

Stay tuned: The next round of payments are slated to go out Dec. 15. Without legislative change, the checks will shrink to their original state.

Around the Agencies

MORE THAN JUST SUNSETS: Raft guides, ski lift operators and other outdoor recreation workers on federal land — often said to be “paid in sunsets” in lieu of decent wages — will see a pay raise in 2022 when Biden’s executive order setting the minimum wage for federal contractors at $15 an hour takes effect, The Salt Lake Tribune’s Zak Podmore reports.

“By reversing a Trump-era exemption, Biden’s order also applies to an estimated 40,000 private companies that hold permits to operate on federal public land managed by the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies,” Podmore writes.

In the Workplace

AMAZON WAREHOUSE COLLAPSE SPOTLIGHTS PHONE BAN: A fatal Amazon warehouse collapse has amplified concerns among its blue collar workforce about the retailer’s mobile phone ban in work areas, Bloomberg’s Spencer Soper reports.

“The warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, near St. Louis, was reduced to rubble when a string of tornadoes ripped through six states, leaving a trail of destruction that stretched more than 200 miles,” Soper writes.

“Amazon had for years prohibited workers from carrying their phones on warehouse floors, requiring them to leave them in vehicles or employee lockers before passing through security checks that include metal detectors. The company backed off during the pandemic, but has been gradually reintroducing it at facilities around the country.”

Why that’s an issue: Amazon workers “said they want access to information such as updates on potentially deadly weather events through their smartphones — without interference from Amazon. The phones can also help them communicate with emergency responders or loved ones if they are trapped, they said.”

OMICRON DISRUPTS PLANS FOR FOREIGN WORKERS… The new variant’s sparking of travel bans and tighter restrictions on new arrivals in many countries has impeded governments’ plans to lean on foreign workers to ease their labor shortages, The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Douglas, Ian Lovett and Jon Emont write.

“That has resulted in a pause on a widespread effort by many advanced economies to entice foreign workers to their shores. How long the disruption lasts isn’t clear and will depend on how dangerous Omicron proves to be and how resistant it is to vaccines, scientists and economists say.”

“Australia, Canada and the U.K. have sought to ease entry rules as businesses cry out for workers to satisfy the surge in demand following the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions, while Germany is weighing whether to entice more immigrants. In the Middle East, governments are loosening rules that tie migrant workers to a single employer. Japan is also relaxing restrictions.”

“Omicron has disrupted some of those plans. On Nov. 29, Australia postponed by two weeks plans to reopen its international border to fully vaccinated skilled workers and students. Japan closed its border to nonresident foreigners, though an immigration official said it is too early to say if the variant will affect its broader goal of welcoming more foreigners.”

… AND FOR RETURNING TO THE OFFICE: Omicron has also forced companies to rethink their strategies for bringing workers back to the office, the AP’s Anne D’Innocenzio reports.

Push it back: “Alphabet’s Google and the nation’s second largest automaker Ford Motor Co. are among those once again delaying their return-to-office plans, while other businesses whose employees have already returned are considering adding extra precautions like requiring masks. Officials in the U.K., Denmark, Norway and Sweden also have asked people in recent days to work from home if they can because of concerns about the variant.”

“Meta, formerly known as Facebook, and ridesharing company Lyft separately announced Tuesday that they’re letting workers delay their return when offices fully reopen early next year. Meta still plans to open its headquarters at the end of January but will allow workers to delay their return as late as June. Lyft says it won’t require workers to come back to its offices for all of next year, though they will fully reopen as planned in February.”

RELATED: “Covid Is Making Many Offices Obsolete. Here’s What Happens to Them Next,” from The Wall Street Journal

TESLA FACES ANOTHER SEXUAL HARRASSMENT SUIT: Another female employee has sued Tesla for sexual harrassment — the second in less than a month, Reuters’ Hyunjoo Jin reports.

The details: “Erica Cloud, a Tesla assembly line worker, accused defendants including her former manager of ‘continuous and pervasive’ sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed in Alameda County Superior Court in California on Wednesday.”

ICYMI: “On Nov. 18, another female Tesla worker, Jessica Barraza, filed a lawsuit against Tesla, alleging rampant sexual harassment at its main factory in Fremont, Calif.” And “in October, a Black contract worker won a $137 million jury award over workplace racism against Tesla.”

Unions

BIDEN SPEAKS OUT: The president made a rare interlude Friday into employer-employee relations when he condemned Kellogg’s plans to permanently replace striking workers, The New York Times’ Noam Scheiber reports.

“I am deeply troubled by reports of Kellogg’s plans to permanently replace striking workers,” Biden said in a statement, adding that such a move amounts to “an existential attack on the union and its members’ jobs and livelihoods.”

Digging deeper: “Permanently replacing workers who are striking over economic issues like wages and benefits is legal, but Democrats, including Biden, have sought to outlaw the practice through the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act,” Scheiber explains. “The House approved the bill in March but it has stalled in the Senate.”

Precedent-setting: Biden, a self-described union man, has made public statements regarding union disputes before, including when he released a pro-union video in the midst of a campaign to organize an Amazon warehouse in Alabama. But, unlike Friday’s statement, he never mentioned the company’s name.

TIKTOK, REDDIT TAKE AIM: A TikToker shared code last week to flood Kellogg’s website with fake job applications after the company said it would permanently replace striking workers, Insider’s Mia Jankowicz reports.

TikTok user Sean Black told Jankowicz that the code “automatically creates an account, fills in all personal details, and uploads a résumé on the company’s site,” Jankowicz writes.

Followers of the popular subreddit r/antiwork have also been working to submit fake applications — or, as they put it, “clog their toilet of an application pipeline” — since Kellogg announced it was hiring for the jobs of the 1,400 workers affiliated with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers Union who voted down a tentative contract agreement last week.

MORE UNION NEWS: “Starbucks Union Vote in Buffalo Energizes Labor Leaders,” from The Wall Street Journal

What We're Reading

— “I Was Sexually Harassed by a Co-worker. My Boss Let My Harasser Stay to ‘Keep an Eye’ on Him,” from Mother Jones

— “Will Outdoor Terraces and Chefs Lure You Back to the Office? These Buildings Hope So,” from The Wall Street Journal

— “The difficulties of policing remote work,” from The Economist

— “You’re Going to Work a Long Time. Here’s How to Build in Breaks,” from The New York Times

— “‘Money is running out’: Financial stress drives retirees back to work,” from NBC News

— “Biden Puts Union Support at Center of Agenda,” from The Wall Street Journal

THAT’S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT!

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