Skip to main content

One to Keep An Eye On: The Workplace Democracy Enhancement Act (New Jersey)


As with many employment and labor law related bills (and cases) being litigated around the country, there are always a few that stand out.

This is one to keep an eye on.


Yesterday, Democrats in New Jersey advanced a bill, NJ A3686 (18R) (also known as The Workplace Democracy Enhancement Act), out of the the Assembly Labor Committee by a 6 - 3 vote along party lines.  The bill, among other things, would require public employers to provide unions with greater access to the employees they represent.  The bill provides that unions would be allowed to meet with employees on the work premises (such as during lunch and other breaks) to discuss workplace issues, collective negotiations, and investigate and discuss grievances.  

As well, unions would be able to meet with newly hired employees (without a charge to the pay or leave time of these employees) for a minimum of 30 minutes, within 30 days from the date of hire, during new employee orientations (or if the employer does not have new employee orientations, at individual or group meetings).

Proponents of the bill have argued it would strengthen communication between unions and their members and the bill's sponsor, Craig Coughlin (a Democrat from Middlesex, New Jersey), noted it would ultimately create "a more trusting and productive work environment."  On the other hand, opponents have argued that this bill would result in taxpayer funded time out of the workday for employees.  Some have gone so far as to argue that this bill would place an undue burden on employers in the state to accommodate unions and their members and ultimately could lead to a disruptive process in the workplace.

This bill still has a ways to go before becoming law.  However, if Democrats in the state can rally around the bill and continue moving it along, The Workplace Democracy Enhancement Act could become a reality sooner rather than later.


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