Antiabortion Democrat Henry Cuellar Is Now Seeking to Gut Labor Rights
Henry Cuellar, the conservative, antiabortion Democratic congressman — who Nancy Pelosi called a “fighter for hardworking families” — has shocked the labor movement with a radical bill seeking to eviscerate workers’ rights.
Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) leaves a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus in the US Capitol, June 8, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Representative Henry Cuellar, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, has introduced a bill eviscerating labor rights that would make the Koch brothers proud.
Cuellar’s bill bears a gaslighting moniker: the Worker Flexibility and Choice Act — joining the Clear Skies Act and the Class Action Fairness Act in the annals of bills whose names are the exact opposite of their actual intent.
Cosponsored with Trumpian Republican Congresswomen Elise Stefanik and Michelle Steel, the bill creates whole new ways for employers to get out of paying minimum wage and overtime, extending the gig economy’s stress and chaos to millions more workers. As employment law professor Veena Dubal of University of California Hastings Law put it on Twitter, this bill would “make earning a living nearly impossible” for workers without bargaining power.
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