Skip to main content

What I've Been Reading This Week: Labor Law Edition


With last week's note highlighting the joint employer bill recently introduced in Congress, I had planned to cover a broader range of articles this week.  While not quite running the gamut on an expansive list of labor & employment law topics, I did read through a few developments on the labor front that justify spending additional time discussing.  Similar to the dispute at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee last year, I think the alleged anti-union tactics at the Nissan plant in Mississippi could turn into a major story.

As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week.


Seattle Ride Sharing Union Ordinance Survives Challenge

On Tuesday, Judge Robert Lasnik of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed a lawsuit that challenged the validity of a Seattle ordinance that lets ride sharing/ride hailing drivers to join labor unions.  Back in 2015 when the ordinance was approved, it was subsequently met with resistance from several groups.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed suit and sought to block the ordinance, on the grounds that it violated and preempted the National Labor Relations Act.  With the Judge's dismissal of the case, this marks a major victory for labor groups.  (However, an injunction is still in effect which prevents this ordinance from taking effect.  That injunction, entered this past April, will remain in place until another case is resolved).



As Jeff Amy writes, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") has charged Nissan with violating workers' rights by engaging in anti-union activity at one of its Mississippi plants ahead of a union election that started yesterday.  The NLRB issued the complaint last Friday and alleged that Nissan has taken "extreme measures" to influence the election, including threatening to fire employees and close the plant if the more than 4,000 workers at the plant vote to have the United Auto Workers represent them.  A Nissan spokesman quickly got out in front of the story and stated that the company has stayed within the law and had the right to communicate their positions in regard to unionization.  It will be interesting to see the outcome of the election...and how much either side fights the outcome.  Stay tuned.


Senate Confirms One of President Trump's NLRB Nominees

This past Wednesday, the Senate confirmed the first of President Donald Trump's nominees to fill a vacant seat on the NLRB.  Marvin Kaplan was confirmed along party lines, 50 - 48, as widely expected.  Republican Senators John McCain and Richard Burr were absent for the vote...but with Republicans holding a majority vote in the Senate, Kaplan was able to cruise through.  While Republicans such as Virginia Foxx and Tim Walberg cheered the news, Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Patty Murray argued this was evidence of a further assault by the Trump Administration on American workers and labor groups.  However, with President Trump's other NLRB nominee, William Emanuel, likely to be confirmed when the Senate comes back from its August recess, Democrats find themselves in a difficult spot without the votes or much of a way to stop Emanuel's confirmation.

Comments

Post a Comment

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, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

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 in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more