Republicans and the Congressional Workers Union
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I’ve gotten to know a couple of the staffers who have founded the Congressional Workers Union and they are great people doing great work. Unionizing congressional staffers, and for that matter the entire political apparatus including campaign workers, absolutely needs to happen. Even left-wing politicians can be pretty nasty to their staff, if just because of the stressful nature of the job if nothing else. So protections are needed. Now that Republicans are in control of the House (with “control” being very much in scare quotes), they are trying to squash the CWU, though I don’t see how they have any power to stop individual members of Congress from recognizing the union with their own staff.
In addition to the myriad changes to things like proxy voting and committee investigations, Republicans’ new rules for the House include a less discussed provision: an attempt to gut staffers’ ability to unionize.
In 2022, House Democrats passed a resolution guaranteeing protections for staff who tried to unionize in the lower chamber. Since then, staffers in 14 Democratic offices have opted to move forward with the unionizing process, which is overseen by the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR). So far, one — former Rep. Andy Levin’s office — has completed it and ratified a contract.
Republicans’ new rules try to put a stop to these efforts, but because of the way they’re written, it’s unclear how much legal weight they actually have. Depending on how they are interpreted, they could potentially slow staffers’ attempts to organize and ignite legal battles over their rights to continue doing so. Whether this is the case, however, remains to be seen.
As outlined by the Republican rules, the unionizing regulations passed last year by Democrats would have “no force or effect” in the 118th Congress. That language, ultimately, may not be sufficient to actually stop staffers from organizing because it doesn’t change the underlying law that establishes their right to unionize or put forth an explicit new rule preventing such activities.
“I don’t think they are hitting the mark,” Kevin Mulshine, a legal expert who previously served as senior counsel at Congress’s Office of Compliance, told Vox. “It could be done, but I don’t think they are succeeding in doing it.”
The Congressional Workers Union, a group of staffers leading the House’s organizing drive, echoed this sentiment, noting that they plan to continue unionizing efforts. “It’s our understanding that this doesn’t have any effect on our current organizing or future organizing activities,” said Taylor Doggett, a spokesperson for CWU.
Of course, finding specious reasons to make anything unions do illegal is the entire history of the Republican Party, 1856-Present. But I’m sure they will soon be the party of the working man….