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    SEIU Joins Forces With AFL-CIO Ahead of New Trump Era

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    A marriage between the service employees union and the A.F.L.-C.I.O. could better equip organized labor to deal with a less-friendly administration.Two prominent labor groups are joining forces in an attempt to expand union membership and protect members’ interests as they face the likelihood of a less union-friendly federal government under Donald J. Trump.The Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly two million workers in industries like home health care and janitorial services, said on Wednesday that it would become part of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., an umbrella group of more than 50 unions that represent more than 12.5 million workers.The boards of the two groups formally approved the affiliation arrangement earlier in the day.April Verrett, the service employees’ president, said in an interview that the union had begun discussing the possibility of joining the A.F.L.-C.I.O. almost two years ago, and that discussions with the federation and its president, Liz Shuler, accelerated early last year.In a statement, the two groups said the partnership would help them push for changes to local, state and federal rules that made it easier for workers to join unions, and help them support “multiunion, multisector” campaigns to organize workers.The move suggests how forces largely aligned with the Democratic Party might try to reposition themselves to deal with the coming administration and a Republican-controlled Congress.Ms. Verrett and Ms. Shuler said the alliance was unrelated to the result of November’s presidential election, but they acknowledged that it would help organized labor fend off potential threats from the Trump administration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Port Workers Could Strike Again if No Deal Is Reached on Automation

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    Cargo could stop flowing at East and Gulf Coast ports, which handle most imports, if a union and an employers’ group can’t agree on the use of machines that can operate without humans.Ports on the East and Gulf Coasts could close next week if dockworkers and employers cannot overcome their big differences over the use of automated machines to move cargo.The International Longshoremen’s Association, the union that represents dockworkers, and the United States Maritime Alliance, the employers’ negotiating group, on Tuesday resumed in-person talks aimed at forging a new labor contract.After a short strike in October, the union and the alliance agreed on a 62 percent raise over six years for the longshoremen — and said they would try to work out other parts of the contract, including provisions governing automated technology, before Jan. 15.If they don’t have a deal by that date, ports that account for three-fifths of U.S. container shipments could shut, harming businesses that rely on imports and exports and providing an early test for the new Trump administration.“If there’s a strike, it will have a significant impact on the U.S. economy and the supply chain,” said Dennis Monts, chief commercial officer of PayCargo, a logistics payments platform.The union is resisting automation because it fears the loss of jobs at the ports. President-elect Donald J. Trump lent his support to the union’s position last month. “I’ve studied automation, and know just about everything there is to know about it,” he said on his website Truth Social. “The amount of money saved is nowhere near the distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American Workers, in this case, our Longshoremen.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Michael Barr to Leave His Role as Fed Vice Chair for Supervision

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    Michael Barr oversaw an attempt to rewrite financial regulations that came under attack from a wide range of groups, including banks, lawmakers and even some of his colleagues.Michael Barr will step down from his role as the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for supervision by Feb. 28, or sooner if President-elect Donald J. Trump appoints a successor, the Fed said on Monday.Mr. Barr will continue to serve on the central bank’s Board of Governors. But in an interview, Mr. Barr said the decision to leave his role as vice chair of supervision was intended to sidestep a protracted legal battle with Mr. Trump that he believed could damage the central bank.Some individuals attached to the Trump administration wanted to fire Mr. Barr before his term as vice chair expired, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on background because of the sensitivity of the issue.That could have resulted in a lengthy — and costly — legal fight over whether an incoming president has the authority to remove someone from a Senate-confirmed position at an independent agency.Some financial regulatory experts questioned why Mr. Barr — and the Fed itself — would allow a political change to influence who served in a powerful role. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed’s chair, has made a point of saying that the Fed is independent of the White House and that its decisions are not influenced by politics. Mr. Powell has also insisted that Mr. Trump lacks the legal authority to fire him from his role as Fed chair, which is also confirmed by the Senate.“I’m surprised by Barr’s announcement, because I expected him to resist Republican calls for his ouster and make a point of defending the Fed’s independence,” Ian Katz, managing director at Capital Alpha, said in an email.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. Weighs Ban on Chinese Drones, Citing National Security Concerns

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    The Commerce Department requested that private companies comment on the implications of the rule by March. The final decision will fall to the Trump administration.The Biden administration said on Thursday that it was considering a new rule that could restrict or ban Chinese drones in the United States out of national security concerns.In a notice, the Commerce Department said the involvement of foreign adversaries — notably China and Russia — in the design, development, manufacture and supply of drones could pose “undue or unacceptable risk to U.S. national security.”The notice requested private companies to comment on the scope and implications of the rule by March 4. The decision of what restrictions to impose, if any, on Chinese and Russian drones will fall to the Trump administration.China and Russia have shown a willingness to compromise U.S. infrastructure and security through cyberespionage, the Commerce Department said, adding that the governments could leverage their laws and political situations to “co-opt private entities for national interests.”Beyond the use of drones by hobbyists, the devices are employed in a variety of U.S. industries. They help farmers monitor crops and spray for pests, inspect pipelines for the chemical industry, survey bridges and construction sites, and aid firefighters and other emergency responders.But drones have evolved over the past decade to include sophisticated cameras, receivers and artificial intelligence abilities, fueling concerns that they could be turned into a useful tool for an adversarial government.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Chinese Companies Have Sidestepped Trump’s Tariffs. They Could Do It Again.

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    The companies have found plenty of new channels to the U.S. market — demonstrating the potential limits of the tariffs Donald Trump has promised to impose.After President Donald J. Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese bicycles in 2018, Arnold Kamler, then the chief executive of the bike maker Kent International, saw a curious trend play out in the bicycle industry.Chinese bicycle factories moved their final manufacturing and assembly operations out of China, setting up new facilities in Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and India. Using parts mostly from China, those companies made bicycles that they could export directly to the United States — without paying the 25 percent tariff had the bike been shipped straight from China.“The net effect of what’s going on with these tariffs is that Chinese factories in China are setting up Chinese factories in other countries,” said Mr. Kamler, whose company imports some bicycles from China and makes others at a South Carolina factory.Pushing those factories into other countries resulted in additional costs for companies and consumers, without increasing the amount of manufacturing in the United States, Mr. Kamler said. He said he had been forced to raise his prices several times as a result of the tariffs.“There’s no real gain here,” said Mr. Kamler, whose bikes are sold at Walmart and other retailers. “It’s very inflationary.”Arnold Kamler said he had to raise prices at Kent International several times as a result of President Donald J. Trump’s 2018 tariffs.Kate Thornton for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Yellen Issues Debt Limit Warning to Congress

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    The Treasury secretary urged Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by raising the debt limit.Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen informed Congress on Friday that if lawmakers do not act to raise or suspend the nation’s debt limit as soon as Jan. 14 she would most likely need to begin using “extraordinary measures” to prevent the United States from defaulting on its debt.Ms. Yellen issued her warning about the debt limit — which caps the amount of money that the United States is authorized to borrow to fund the government and meet its financial obligations — at a fractious political moment. Republicans are set to take control of Washington next month, and President-elect Donald J. Trump has already called on Congress to abolish the debt limit before he seeks to push through a new round of tax cuts and other spending priorities.The debt limit was suspended in June 2023 after a contentious negotiation over federal spending, work requirements for receiving government benefits and funding for the Internal Revenue Service. That suspension is scheduled to expire on Jan. 2, forcing Treasury to begin using so-called extraordinary measures to allow the federal government to keep paying its bills.Those measures are essentially accounting maneuvers that keep the government from breaching the debt limit. They can include suspending certain types of investments in savings plans for government workers and health plans for retired postal workers.The United States borrows money to pay its bills and obligations, including funding for social safety net programs, interest on the national debt and salaries for members of the armed forces. If the United States is unable to raise the debt limit, it will soon be unable to make many of those payments, including to investors who have bought government debt.“I respectfully urge Congress to act to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Ms. Yellen said in a letter on Friday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Backers, Including Elon Musk, Clash With Far Right Over Immigrant Workers and H-1B Visas

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    A fierce dispute erupted in the president-elect’s camp between immigration hard-liners and tech industry leaders including Elon Musk.Weeks before President-elect Donald J. Trump is to take office, a major rift has emerged among his supporters over immigration and the place of foreign workers in the U.S. labor market.The debate hinges on how much tolerance, if any, the incoming administration should have for skilled immigrants brought into the country on work visas.The schism pits immigration hard-liners against many of the president-elect’s most prominent backers from the technology industry — among them Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who helped back Mr. Trump’s election efforts with more than a quarter of a billion dollars, and David Sacks, a venture capitalist picked to be czar for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency policy.The tech industry has long relied on foreign skilled workers to help run its companies, a labor supply that critics say undercuts wages for American citizens.The dispute, which late Thursday exploded online into acrimony, finger-pointing and accusations of censorship, frames a policy quandary for Mr. Trump. The president-elect has in the past expressed a willingness to provide more work visas to skilled workers, but has also promised to close the border, deploy tariffs to create more jobs for American citizens and severely restrict immigration.Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and fervent Trump loyalist, helped set off the altercation earlier this week by criticizing Mr. Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian American venture capitalist, to be an adviser on artificial intelligence policy. In a post, she said she was concerned that Mr. Krishnan, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in India, would have influence on the Trump administration’s immigration policies, and mentioned “third-world invaders.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Plans to Scrap Climate Policies Has Unnerved Green Energy Investors

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    President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to roll back many of the rules and subsidies that have attracted billions of dollars from the private sector to renewable energy and electric vehicles.Money is the mother’s milk of politics, but the outcome of elections also determines where it flows — and last month’s was especially crucial for the energy industry.Clean investment — including renewable energy as well as the manufacturing of electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels — has boomed since the passage of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, championed by President Biden. In the third quarter of 2024, it reached a record $71 billion, according to a tracker maintained by the Rhodium Group, an energy-focused research firm, and M.I.T.The big question looming now on Wall Street: Will President-elect Donald J. Trump, who called Mr. Biden’s policies the “green new scam” during the campaign, pull back enough of those subsidies and regulations to meaningfully change the economics of investing in decarbonization?Market reactions right after the election seemed clear. Clean energy stocks dropped sharply, while shares of oil companies bounced, indicating a divergent view of how the two sectors will fare in the coming years.Near the top of Mr. Trump’s agenda next year is extending his 2017 tax cuts. He will most likely need to reduce spending elsewhere to do that. Clean energy tax credits — worth about $350 billion over just the next three years, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation — would be a tempting target. The more those subsidies are pared, the more projects would no longer make financial sense.President Biden has championed the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and other policies designed to address climate change and spur investment in cleaner forms of energy.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More