Weekly Advocacy Recap-November 11, 2019

Welcome to the ISSA Advocacy Weekly Recap! This is ISSA’s regular roundup of the latest public policy-related issues impacting the cleaning industry.

Tell Congress to Support USMCA
The window of opportunity to pass the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a proposed trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, is quickly shrinking. The U.S. Congress needs to hear from the cleaning industry and understand there are millions of jobs at stake if they don’t pass the USMCA. Join ISSA in telling Congress to pass USMCA.

China Says It Has an Agreement With the United States to Roll Back Tariffs
CNBC reports “Gao Feng, a ministry spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry, said that both sides had agreed to simultaneously cancel some existing tariffs on one another’s goods, according to the country’s state broadcaster. The ministry spokesperson said that both sides were closer to a so-called ‘phase one’ trade agreement following constructive negotiations over the past two weeks.” ISSA has been proactively pushing for the roll back of the tariffs as a member of Americans for Free Trade coalition.

New California Training Standards Adopted to Protect Janitors from Workplace Harassment
California Governor Gavin Newsome recently signed a bill setting peer-to-peer training standards to help protect custodial workers from workplace harassment. The legislation will go into effect on January 1, 2021. ISSA has been engaged on this issue and has created a summary of harassment training requirements for all 50 states.

Other links of interest:

• Sen. Mike Lee Wants to Strip Power of Federal Labor Relations Board
• EPA Proposes Supplement to TSCA Procedural Rule on Confidential Business Information
• Save the Date: 2020 DC Fly-In with ISSA on March 25-26 
• White House and Congress Eye December Battle to Avoid Shutdown
• ISSA Show North America 2019: Advocacy Panel on the State of Labor