Posts tagged Labor Law
Amazon union victory at Staten Island warehouse upheld by federal labor board
January 12, 2023 // A federal labor agency on Wednesday certified an independent union’s landmark victory at Amazon ’s Staten Island warehouse and threw out a litany of objections filed by the e-retailer. In a filing Wednesday, Cornele Overstreet, a director of the NLRB’s Phoenix-based office, said he agreed with a federal labor official’s prior ruling that all of Amazon’s objections should be dismissed.
The Supreme Court hears a case this week that endangers workers’ ability to strike
January 10, 2023 // Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters should be a straightforward case. But nothing is ever straightforward in this Supreme Court.
D.C.’s Union Kitchen Slapped With 26 Counts Of Labor Law Violation
November 10, 2022 // In its ruling, the NLRB orders Union Kitchen to reinstate the wrongfully fired employees, provide backpay, and that Union Kitchen owner Cullen Gilchrist must publicly apologize to employees at a “meeting or meetings scheduled to ensure the widest possible attendance.” Union Kitchen, represented in the NLRB complaint by Gilchrist, is required to respond to the board by Nov. 18. A hearing has been set for February 13, 2023, where Gilchrist will have an opportunity to testify against the allegations before an administrative law judge with NLRB. The judge will then determine whether to issue the remedies called for in the formal complaint. Gilchrist did not immediately return DCist/WAMU’s request for comment.
Freedom of Speech? Not if the National Labor Relations Board Gets Its Way
October 31, 2022 // Amazon unionization efforts recently failed in Albany, NY in October. Workers said no by an almost 2 to 1 margin. In total, less than a quarter of all employees voted for representation by the Amazon Labor Union. Shortly after, the union withdrew its petition to try to organize a California warehouse. It also lost a second vote in Staten Island in May. Amazon workers are clearly saying no to unionization. The NLRB and unions are responding by threatening a bedrock constitutional right of all Americans.
Starbucks says union broke rules by recording talks in 5 places
October 28, 2022 // The NLRB prohibits recordings or transcripts of contract negotiations and has previously argued against recording bargaining sessions
Op-ed: FTC on the Gig Economy: The Glass is Almost Empty
October 12, 2022 // The FTC does, of course, have a legitimate role to play in challenging unfair methods of competition and unfair acts or practices that undermine consumer welfare wherever they arise, including in the gig economy. But it does a disservice by focusing merely on supposed negative aspects of the gig economy and conjuring up a gig-specific “parade of horribles” worthy of close commission scrutiny and enforcement action. Many of the “horribles” cited may not even be “bads,” and many of them are, in any event, beyond the proper legal scope of FTC inquiry. There are other federal agencies (for example, the National Labor Relations Board) whose statutes may prove applicable to certain problems noted in the gig statement. In other cases, statutory changes may be required to address certain problems noted in the statement (assuming they actually are problems). The FTC, and its fellow enforcement agencies, should keep in mind, of course, that they are not Congress, and wishing for legal authority to deal with problems does not create it (something the federal judiciary fully understands). In short, the negative atmospherics that permeate the gig statement are unnecessary and counterproductive; if anything, they are likely to convince at least some judges that the FTC is not the dispassionate finder of fact and enforcer of law that it claims to be. In particular, the judiciary is unlikely to be impressed by the FTC’s apparent effort to insert itself into questions that lie far beyond its statutory mandate.
TikTok Creators Want To Unionize, But Experts Warn It Could Be ‘Very Challenging’
October 4, 2022 // Content on the app is monetized through several arrangements. One of those ways is through the Creator Next program: the ground floor hub through which the rest of transaction avenues occur. To be eligible, creators must have over 1,000 viewing hours of their content over the last 30 days. Once in the door of Creator Next, you can be paid directly from fan transactions (tips, video gifts, live gifting), brand endorsement deals (via the Creator Marketplace) or directly through the Creator Fund. Of all the monetization models available to creators on the platform, only the Creator’s Fund refers to its participants as independent contractors of TikTok on their legal Terms page. As such, the Creator Fund is perhaps the only avenue by which creators can form a union and lobby Tiktok for employment status.
Op-ed: Competition key to determining effects of increased unionization
September 27, 2022 // We often take it for granted that businesses would prefer to bargain individually with workers, rather than collectively through a union. A cynical explanation might be that profit-hungry corporations prioritize greed over worker welfare, but academic research offers some deeper insight. It shows that companies that are unionized experience reductions in product quality and face a higher likelihood of going out of business. Professors Omesh Kini (Georgia State University), Mo Shen (Auburn University), Jaideep Shenoy (University of Connecticut) and Venkat Subramaniam (Tulane University) find that unionized manufacturers experience a higher rate of product recalls than non-unionized companies.
Considering California’s $22 Minimum Wage at the Federal Level
September 20, 2022 // The labor council created by California’s FAST Recovery Act will be responsible for setting employment standards for fast-food workers and have the authority to raise the minimum wage for these employees by 41 percent to $22 per hour. Such a dramatic increase in the minimum wage for fast-food workers would improve pay for those who are able to keep their positions, but would have negative impacts on employers, consumers, and workers who suffer job loss as a result. A national $22 minimum wage for fast-food workers would cause labor costs to rise by up to 35 percent, resulting in increased prices, layoffs, or some combination of both.
Special Notice for Nurses in the Twin Cities and Twin Ports
September 9, 2022 // The Minnesota Nurses Association has scheduled a three-day strike to begin on September 12 at 16 hospitals located in the Twin Cities, Duluth, Moose Lake, and Superior, Wisconsin. Reportedly, the strike will affect up to 15,000 nurses. The list of reportedly affected hospitals is below. While the threatened strike has not yet occurred, the situation raises serious concerns for workers who believe there is much to lose from a union-ordered strike. If a strike occurs, employees have the right under federal labor law to rebuff union officials’ strike demands, but it is important for you to get informed before you do so.