Skip to main content

Pro-Employer "Summit on Workers' Empowerment" To Occur Today, October 6th, 2015


Yesterday, I posted an article about the Summit on Worker Voice, hosted by the White House.  (White House to Host "Voice on Worker Summit").  This event, scheduled for Wednesday, is an opportunity to "bring together workers, labor leaders, advocates, forward-leaning employers, members of Congress, state and local officials and others to highlight the relationship between worker voice and a thriving middle class."

Now, the Heritage Foundation has scheduled a "Summit on Workers' Empowerment" for today, October 6th, to "draw attention to excessive government regulations that hold workers back and the issues Big Labor and the enabling administration are causing to the American workforce."  Translation:  We were not invited to the White House event so we are going to stage a pro-employer/anti-union meeting of our own.  

It is not surprising that this pro-employer meeting is to occur, especially given that it takes place a day before the White House event.  Granted, I would expect the event at the White House to get more attention, but this is the employers' side of the table getting a chance to put their positions/issues out front, ahead of the pro-employee meeting on October 7th.  It will be interesting to see how much media attention is given to this event today.

For additional information:  http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/10/workers-summit

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum,...

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies i...

What I've Been Reading This Week

Recently, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Commissioner, Chai Feldblum, had her re-nomination on the brink, after Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee took steps to block it .  Readers might have heard that late last week, Commissioner Feldblum's re-nomination quietly slipped away and she tweeted out a thank you to supporters and friends, acknowledging that her time at the EEOC was over.  While there has not been much in the way of a further update in regard to that ongoing saga, we wait to see how things will play out at the EEOC, now that it has lost a quorum until additional Commissioners are confirmed by the Senate. For the time being, there are other developments for readers to review this week.  In particular, I call attention to the article on managing a wage & hour audit by the Department of Labor as well as steps an employer can take to better ensure compliance with the ADA. As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week. ...