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Americans for Tax Reform and 33 other think tanks and advocacy groups wrote a letter to Congress regarding Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions in the House and Senate which aim to nullify the National Labor Relations Board’s recent rule expanding the joint employer standard.
Read the full letter below or by clicking here.
November 14, 2023
Dear Member of Congress,
Small business needs protection. As you are aware, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued their final rule “Standard for Determining Joint Employer Status” on October 27, 2023.
Through this rule the NLRB rejected the traditional understanding of the joint employer standard. The result will be direct harm to entrepreneurs, small businesses, and their employees.
However, a bipartisan legislative effort to nullify the rule using congressional power under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) is underway. This effort is led by Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and Congressman John James (R-Mich.), and it aims to protect American small businesses, workers, and consumers from this harmful bureaucratic action.
Longstanding precedent has held that two businesses should only be held as jointly responsible for the same set of employees if they both exert direct and immediate control over key aspects of employment. This framework allowed business models like franchising and temporary work arrangements to thrive, creating jobs, boosting economic productivity, and enabling many Americans to become first-time small business owners.
The new rule issued by NLRB, however, puts these benefits in jeopardy by forcing businesses to be held as joint employers on the basis of “indirect control,” or even on the basis of theoretical control which has never been exercised. Studies analyzing a similarly expansive rule from 2015 indicate that franchise businesses could have seen billions of dollars in economic losses and hundreds of thousands of lost job opportunities as a result of the rule.
In an economic environment already destabilized by inflation and overregulation, America’s small businesses cannot afford for the NLRB to push forward with more costly mandates.
As the branch of government most representative of and responsive to the people, Congress is tasked with protecting Americans from bureaucratic overreach and the economic devastation that may accompany it. We hope you will think about small businesses and what is best for their employees when considering the joint resolution of disapproval to reverse the NLRB’s overreach on the joint employer standard.
Signed,
Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform
Saulius “Saul” Anuzis, President, 60 Plus Association
Phil Kerpen, President, American Commitment
Steve Pociask, President and CEO, American Consumer Institute
Richard Manning, President, Americans for Limited Government
Brent Gardner, Chief Government Affairs Officer, Americans for Prosperity
Ryan Ellis, President, Center for a Free Economy
Daniel J. Mitchell, President, Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Russ Brown, President, Center for Independent Employees
Timothy Lee, Senior VP of Legal and Public Affairs, Center for Individual Freedom
David McIntosh, President, Club for Growth
Sean Higgins, Research Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Tom Schatz, President, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
James Erwin, Executive Director, Digital Liberty
Brian Minnich, Executive Vice President, Freedom Foundation
Jason Pye, Policy Adviser, FreedomWorks
Ryan Walker, Executive Vice President, Heritage Action
Mailee Smith, Senior Director of Labor Policy, Illinois Policy Institute
Heather R. Higgins, Chief Executive Officer, Independent Women’s Voice
Vincent F. Vernuccio, President, Institute for the American Worker
Seton Motley, President, Less Government
Caden Rosenbaum, Tech & Innovation Policy Analyst, Libertas Institute
Steve Delie, Director of Labor Policy, Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Charles Sauer, President, Market Institute
Brandon Arnold, Executive Vice President, National Taxpayers Union
Doug Kellogg, Director, Ohioans for Tax Reform
Tom Hebert, Executive Director, Open Competition Center
Lorenzo Montanari, Executive Director, Property Rights Alliance
Paul J. Gessing, President, Rio Grande Foundation
Karen Kerrigan, President and CEO, Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
Maureen Blum, CEO, Strategic Coalitions & Initiatives LLC
David Williams, President, Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Lindsay Killen, Senior National Advisor, Workers for Opportunity
Carol Platt Liebau, President, Yankee Institute