Posts tagged Labor Law
California’s on the cusp of transforming America’s fast food industry — again
August 16, 2023 // “Because it’s so many stores, and going store to store would be difficult, the path to unionization here is basically through legislation,” said Brandon Dawkins, SEIU 1021 vice president of organizing. “After we get the council together and force the employer to the table, then the unions — we can come in and really sit down and negotiate with the corporations to, number one, create a union and, number two, address issues like safety and wage theft.” A labor council’s purview extends to workplace conditions like predictable scheduling — a longstanding goal for labor — noted California Labor Federation Executive Officer Lorena Gonzalez, a former state lawmaker who carried an earlier version of the bill when she served in the state Assembly. “If you get joint employer liability, it’s more likely McDonald’s would want to talk about a national agreement or strategy because now they’re on the hook for every labor violation,” Gonzalez said. That tactic has angered restaurant operators who have rallied against the legislation. Marisol Sanchez, a second-generation McDonald’s franchise owner, has appeared in advertising opposing the 2023 bill. Sanchez said she believed SEIU was acting on its own political agenda rather than in response to worker demands.
SEIU: ‘California’s Fourth Branch of Government’
July 13, 2023 // Notably, Manzo said businesses with labor union agreements usually don’t have to labor under the same strict state labor laws they force on other non-union private sector businesses – they receive exemptions in unholy deals with Democrat lawmakers. For more information on California’s Fourth Branch of Government and how to fight it, visit CABIA.org CABIA is calling out unscrupulous trial attorneys, paid politicians, and their allies that want to maintain the status quo in California. Our lawsuit tracker is the only one of its kind that provides public data on the amount of Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) suits law firms file each year. We also publish information on which politicians are backed by trial lawyer advocacy groups and other interests groups that would like to keep PAGA intact.
BACKGROUNDER: Employee Rights Act
June 26, 2023 // Sponsored by Rick Allen (R-GA) The Employee Rights Act of 2025 safeguards and strengthens the rights of American workers. It guarantees workers’ right to a secret ballot election, ensures they can work directly with their employer if they opt-out of union membership, protects worker privacy, allows workers to choose to fund union politics or not, provides legal clarity for small business owners and independent contractors, and guarantees fair representation for all American workers.
Unions take on UPMC in antitrust complaint
June 2, 2023 // On Thursday, SEIU along with a coalition of labor unions filed a 55-page complaint against Pennsylvania’s biggest nongovernmental employer, alleging that its size has allowed UPMC to hold down wages and benefits, “drastically increased workloads,” and kept workers from leaving for other jobs through a “draconian system of mobility restrictions.” The union is asking the Justice Department to investigate UPMC for antitrust violations, made possible by its dominance of the health care market in Pittsburgh, Erie and other parts of Pennsylvania, something called monopsonization. For every 10% increase in market share, wages for UPMC workers falls 30 cents to 57 cents an hour on average, according to the complaint. At the same time, the ratio of workers to patients has steadily increased, making UPMC’s staffing ratios on average 19% lower than at non-UPMC facilities.
U.S. employers have gone from opposing international labor standards to hiding behind them. Now a complaint is trying to stop U.S.-style union busting from taking over the world
May 31, 2023 // What explains the shift? International standards are increasingly becoming part of the fabric of global governance. They might be embedded in trade agreements, procurement rules, or within the codes of conduct of investors. It’s not acceptable anymore for a global company to tell its investors that they reject international labor standards. So instead of being honest, employers seek to distort the meaning of international labor standards beyond recognition. It’s time for the ILO to make clear that U.S.-style interference with workers’ efforts to come together in a union violates the ILO Convention on Freedom of Association (convention 87). Such a finding might not deliver a change in U.S. law, but it would send a message to companies that they can’t hide behind the United Nations and the ILO to justify their union-busting tactics.
Noncompete clauses ‘chill’ worker rights and are usually illegal, NLRB lawyer says
May 31, 2023 // General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, appointed by Biden in 2021, wrote that noncompete clauses — which generally prevent people from immediately moving to one of their employer's rivals — "tend to chill" workers' rights under federal law, specifically Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which protects the ability to collectively organize and agitate for improved working conditions. A person barred from moving to another company in their chosen profession, at least for a set amount of time, is less likely to fight for change at their current employer, Abruzzo argued in the memo, issued Tuesday, knowing that could well make them a target for termination; employers likewise have little reason to fear that disgruntled workers will be snatched up by a competitor, thus reducing the latter's bargaining power.
New California law that facilitates farmworker unionization could already see changes
May 12, 2023 // In a Majority Support Petition, a union would be certified to represent workers after it submits proof that it has the support, typically in the form of collected signatures, of a majority of workers within a workplace to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Unions prefer the majority support process because the formal election process can be a drawn-out process that gives employers time to discourage unionization, sometimes through illegal means, such as threats.
Opinion: What Can We Learn from Growing Federal Sector Unions? (Hint: Maybe Clean Slate Works)
April 11, 2023 // Biden did much more than just not be Trump or speak in support of labor generally. His administration also put in place several polices that created conditions of true neutrality. For example, the Office of Personnel Management put out memos to ensure that federal managers maintained real neutrality during organizing campaigns. Those memos directed managers to consult with labor-management specialists before responding to employees’ questions about organizing to ensure that they did not convey any inaccurate or biased information. OPM also directed federal managers to actually make it easier for unions to organize. For the first time, agencies are required to allow unions to post information about their organization and contact information for union representatives on office bulletin boards, public websites, or employee-only intranets. OPM also directed agencies to share a list of bargaining-unit employees and their work email addresses with union officials and to invite unions to participate in the orientation process for new bargaining unit employees. The Biden Administration also encouraged agencies to restart labor-management forums, which the Trump Administration had tried to shut down.
Voluntary Recognition of Unions Is Increasingly Popular Among U.S. Employers
January 23, 2023 // In January 2023, Microsoft recognized a union of playtesters at its subsidiary ZeniMax Studios; Major League Baseball voluntarily recognized minor league players’ choice to join the Major League Baseball Players Association in September; workers at a number of media organizations had their unions recognized throughout 2021 and 2022; and mission-driven organizations such as charities, museums, civil rights and environmentalist groups, think tanks, and other nonprofits all voluntarily recognized worker unions as well. Other businesses, including The Metals Company, Forever Energy, and the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, signed neutrality agreements with unions, under which the firms agreed to refrain from engaging in anti-union tactics during an election. Some companies have communicated that they have pursued voluntary recognition because their own organizations’ goals broadly align with those of workers. In particular, a number of mission-driven organizations have opted for voluntary recognition in recent years, including the Whitney Museum, the Shed, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Los Angeles, the Brookings Institution, the National Center for Transgender Equality, Capital Roots, Code for America, and others. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a national nonprofit that litigates to protect civil liberties, first voluntarily recognized the unionization of national staffers with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 70, also called the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, in 2021.* One of the ACLU’s state affiliates, the ACLU of Texas, also recognized its workers’ choice to unionize with United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2320 in 2022. Indeed, as the ACLU of Texas stated after recognizing its employee union: Media and news organizations have seen some of the largest voluntary recognition agreements signed in the United States. Along with workers at Politico, The Atlantic, Public News Service, The State, and others, employees at Condé Nast won voluntary recognition for their staff union with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in 2022. Spurred on by their co-workers at The New Yorker and other Condé Nast publications that voted in favor of joining the NewsGuild-CWA in 2018, these workers organized a union that covers 500 workers, including 100 subcontractors. Workers have also won voluntary recognition in the entertainment industry, including at the International Documentary Association, Seven Seas Entertainment, and the iHeartPodcast Network, as well as through the Animation Guild.
Restaurant Employees Will See Huge Pay Raises Nationwide
January 12, 2023 // Laws, like the FAST ACT, plus the unionization of restaurant employees are boosting the minimum wage for restaurant employees.