President Trump Signs H.J. Res. 37 Canceling the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces (“Blacklisting”) Rule

Last month, we wrote about the House passing a resolution (H.J. Res. 37) pursuant to the Congressional Review Act to repeal the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule (commonly known as the contractor “Blacklisting” rule). At the time we predicted the resolution would also pass the Senate and be signed by President Trump. On March 6, 2017, the Senate passed the joint resolution, and joint resolution was signed by President Trump yesterday, permanently nullifying the Blacklisting rule before it ever took effect.

In signing the joint resolution, President Trump commented:

First House Joint Resolution 37 rolls back the so-called blacklisting rule.  When I met with manufacturers earlier this year — and they were having a hard time, believe me — they said this blacklisting rule was one of the greatest threats to growing American business and hiring more American workers.  It was a disaster they said.  This rule made it too easy for trial lawyers to get rich by going after American companies and American workers who contract with the federal government — making it very difficult.  You all know what I’m talking about, right?

While there is no question that getting rid of the Blacklisting rule is good news for government contractors, its not quite clear that the Blacklisting rule would have allowed “trial lawyers to get rich by going after American companies and American workers who contract with the federal government.” While it is possible that a small part of the Blacklisting rule would have benefited some trial lawyers (there was a sub-section of the rule that would have prohibited corporations with federal contracts of $1 million or more from subjecting their employees to forced arbitration of a limited subset of claims), in fact, a number of lawyer groups, including the ABA Section of Public Contract Law and the Littler Workplace Policy Institute, raised serious concerns/oppositions about this rule from the start.