A discharge petition signed by U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan secured enough signatures to trigger a vote in the House of Representatives on a bill that would restore collective bargaining rights for federal workers, Bresnahan\u2019s office announced Monday.<\/p>\n
The House discharge rule allows members to bring a bill or resolution to the floor for consideration even if the measure has not been reported by committee or is not supported by the majority party leadership should it secure 218 signatures.<\/p>\n
Bresnahan, R-8, Dallas Twp. \u2014 who signed Discharge Petition 6 on Sept. 2 \u2014 was one of only five Republicans among the 218 House members to back the effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the workers at (USP)\u00a0Canaan, the most dangerous federal prison on the East Coast, to those at the Wilkes-Barre Social Security Office who answer all the calls from across the nation, to those at Tobyhanna Army Depot, our VA facilities, IRS centers, and all in between, our district is home to 10,000 federal workers who serve our communities every single day,\u201d Bresnahan said in a news release. \u201cI support the right to collectively bargain and proudly stand with union members. It\u2019s a cornerstone of fair labor and a strong middle class. Union rights are workers\u2019 rights, and I\u2019ll always fight for the hardworking men and women of northeastern Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Protect America\u2019s Workforce Act \u2014 co-sponsored by Bresnahan \u2014 would reverse an executive order by President Donald Trump that stripped collective bargaining protections from union workers across federal agencies including the Department of Veterans Affairs, Bureau of Prisons and the Social Security Administration, according to a news release from Bresnahan\u2019s office. The order affected roughly 67% of the federal workforce. The bipartisan bill was first introduced in April.<\/p>\n
In late March, Trump moved to end collective bargaining with federal labor unions in agencies with national security missions across the federal government, citing authority granted him under a 1978 law.<\/p>\n
In April, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing the executive order as U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled that a key part of the order can\u2019t be enforced at roughly three dozen agencies and departments where employees are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union.<\/p>\n
An appeals court in May allowed the executive order to move forward while a lawsuit plays out after Trump\u2019s administration asked for an emergency pause on a judge\u2019s order blocking enforcement.<\/p>\n
In August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to strip thousands of federal health agency employees of their collective bargaining rights.<\/p>\n
It is unclear when the House will vote on the measure.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A discharge petition signed by U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan secured enough signatures to trigger a vote in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,803,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":{"0":"post-38564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-lackawanna-county","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-luzerne-county","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-scranton","14":"tag-scranton-headlines","15":"tag-scranton-news","16":"tag-top-stories-stt"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}