The U.S. Senate on Wednesday narrowly approved a proposal, which President Joe Biden has vowed to veto, to repeal a National Labor Relations Board rule that would treat companies as the employers of many of their contract and franchise workers and require them to bargain with those workers' unions.
The Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, passed the resolution in a 50-48 vote. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat who often votes with Republicans and has been critical of the NLRB rule, and independent senators Angus King of Maine and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona voted in favor of the proposal.
The Republican-led House of Representatives approved the resolution in January, shortly after the White House said Biden, a Democrat, would veto the measure if it passed Congress. A two-thirds majority would be required to overcome a veto.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.
The resolution was introduced under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to repeal agency rules through a majority vote in both houses.
The NLRB rule was set to take effect in February, but was delayed and ultimately blocked by U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in Tyler, Texas, in a lawsuit by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.
The rule would treat companies as "joint employers" of contract and franchise workers when they have control over key working conditions such as pay, scheduling, discipline and supervision, even if that control is indirect or not exercised.
Critics of the rule, including many Republicans and most major business groups, have said it would be improper to force companies to the bargaining table when they have little control over working conditions.
Groups representing franchise businesses claim it could upend the franchise model by requiring companies such as McDonald's to bargain with the employees of franchisees.
The rule "would treat virtually every entity that contracts for labor as a joint employer," because those contracts generally impact working conditions, the judge wrote. The NLRB has not yet filed an appeal of that ruling.
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