Skip to main content

One to Keep An Eye On: Employee Rights Act


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.


Currently, the Employee Rights Act is working its way through the U.S. Congress.  This bill, H.R. 2723, would amend the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") and make it an unlawful labor practice for a labor organization to interfere with the rights of employees to organize and collectively bargain, require union recertification after a a turnover in the workforce (exceeding 50% of the bargaining unit), require the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") to give 14 days advance notice before a hearing to investigate an election petition, and also require an employer to provide the NLRB with a list comprised only of employee names and addresses of all eligible voters within 7 days after an NLRB determination of the appropriate bargaining unit or an agreement on eligible voters.

Notably, the bill would also prohibit the use of union dues for any purpose not directly related to collective bargaining.  

Recently, the Center for Union Facts (an anti-labor group) launched an ad buy urging Congress to pass the Employee Rights Act in order to prevent union dues from being used to "fund a left-wing political agenda".  I question whether this ad buy will tip the scales either way...but it is notable in so much that there is starting to be an increase in attention to the bill.

Stay tuned.



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

Happening Tomorrow: Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Increases

For those employers and employees alike in Connecticut, mark your calendars as tomorrow, the minimum wage rate increases in the state from $13/hour to $14/hour. This wage hike comes after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont had signed Public Act 19-4 into law in 2019 which progressively raised the state’s hourly minimum wage rate every year for five years.  In fact, next year, the hourly wage rate will top out at $15/hour.  Beginning in January of 2024, the hourly wage rate will be indexed to the employment cost index. For additional information:   https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2022/06-2022/Governor-Lamont-Reminds-Residents-That-Minimum-Wage-Is-Scheduled-To-Increase-on-Friday
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