Vermont gadfly Senator Bernie Sanders chairs the Senate Budget Committee that held a public hearing last week objectively entitled “Should Taxpayer Dollars Go to Companies that Violate Labor Laws?” One of the prime speakers invited to testify was a fired Amazon employee (Chris Smalls) who helped create the Amazon Labor Union (ALU). Smalls testified that Amazon acted unfairly at the election where unionizing was defeated and that’s all the Senator needed. Chairman Sanders is pushing to resurrect an Obama-era executive order that “blacklisted” any company with alleged labor law violations from receiving a federal contract, regardless of their guilt or innocence – only the allegation was necessary! To that end, he sent a letter to President Biden two weeks ago urging Biden to re-issue the blacklisting executive order. Ultimately, that Obama executive order was thrown out by a federal court in Texas. And, speaking further of Amazon – like Starbucks, currently in the NLRB crosshairs – last week employees at a second Amazon facility in Staten Island rejected the very same Amazon Labor Union by an almost 2-1 margin! You’ll recall that workers at an Amazon facility in Bessemer Alabama also voted against the union by a more than 2 to 1 margin over a year ago, but the NLRB rejected that result – again because of allegations – and ordered a new election. The results of this NLRB do-over are still uncertain with over 400 votes being challenged. Keep your head down, your eyes open and your guard up!