Skip to main content

What I’ve Been Reading This Week


Perhaps this should have been a “Labor Law Edition” to close out the week, given that the two articles that I want to highlight for readers are labor centric.  Even for those readers that do not encounter labor unions or unionization efforts often, I encourage you to give both of the below articles a read.

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


Starbucks & the Union Elections: The Start of a Wave Of Unionization Efforts In the Food Industry?

As readers might recall, workers at several Buffalo area Starbucks locations have sought to unionize.  While Starbucks has sought to have one election for all the stores, each store will have its own election.  As Katishi Maake at Retail Brew writes, labor advocates are hoping to use a successful election at one (or more) of the Buffalo area stores as a catalyst to encourage other workers in the food industry to follow suit.  I refer readers to the article for Maake’s thoughts on the matter.  While the results of the elections will still not be known for a few more weeks, a loss (even a close one) might not quell the desire of other food service workers to attempt a similar election.


Unions Seek to Allow Connecticut National Guard to Unionize

For those unfamiliar with the matter, a 1978 law forbids members of the armed forces from unionizing.  That begs the question (for some) as to whether members of the National Guard can lawfully unionize.  It turns out, that might be decided by a judge, following several unions filing suit seeking to have the 1978 law being declared inapplicable as to members of the National Guard which would consequently allow members of the Connecticut National Guard to vote to unionize.  This could turn into an interesting case to follow.

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