Posts tagged mandatory meetings
ABC MICHIGAN V. ABRUZZO
March 17, 2023 // Soon after taking her new job, Abruzzo issued a memo announcing that the NLRB will now consider it illegal for employers to talk to employees about unions at mandatory meetings
Op-ed: Congress should be wary of Labor agency’s plea for more cash
December 21, 2022 // Still, even as the NLRB is claiming it does not have the resources to carry out its mission, Abruzzo through a series of memos has instructed the agency to pursue legal theories that take time to research instead of letting staffers simply enforce agreed-upon law. For instance, she issued a memo telling agents to guard against “ unlawful threats and coercive activity ” by employers, which sounds reasonable until one considers that Abruzzo views employee meetings on unionization, mandatory companywide meetings to discuss unionization where employees are fully compensated for their time, as borderline coercive. The NLRB could also cut down on the use of official time. Official time is when union workers are paid their taxpayer-funded salaries to do union work rather than the government jobs they were hired to do.
Noble Knight Games voluntarily recognizes employees’ union
December 7, 2022 // The union, called Noble Knight Games United, was organized through Communications Workers of America. It will consist of 58 workers, including those who provide customer service, ship online orders from its warehouse and work at its storefront at 2835 Commerce Park Drive, among others. The company has around 75 employees, but some are excluded because they are supervisors. The union alleges that management repeatedly held mandatory “union-busting” meetings in the weeks after it announced its unionization effort. Workers are seeking higher pay, “affordable benefits … healthy work-life balance, fair and transparent policies and procedures,”
Op-ed: The NLRB is gutting free speech to protect unions
November 4, 2022 // The reason behind Biden’s vow remains clear as day — unions are one of the largest drivers of cash to Democratic campaign coffers, spending $1.8 billion in the 2020 cycle alone. To deliver on this campaign promise, Biden has weaponized the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to clamp down on workplace speech and drive up union membership. Congress needs to get hold of the runaway NLRB before it is too late.
Labor agency tallies votes in another Amazon union election
October 18, 2022 // This will be the fourth union election at an Amazon warehouse this year, and the third one led by the Amazon Labor Union. The upstart group secured an unexpected win in April at a company warehouse on Staten Island but was stung by a loss shortly thereafter at another facility nearby. A union election in Alabama, led by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, remains too close to call. Amazon has been trying to undo the ALU's lone victory, filing more than two dozen objections to the election and seeking a redo vote. Last month, a federal labor official concluded the union should be certified as a bargaining representative for the warehouse. Amazon, which hasn't recognized the union, said it intends to appeal the decision. And CEO Andy Jassy has also signaled the company could take the case to federal court. ALU organizers say they’re focused on petitioning for more elections and pressuring Amazon to negotiate a contract at the facility that voted to unionize. Experts note a win in Schodack — located near one of the most unionized metro areas in the country, according to Unionstats.com — would offer the group more leverage and a chance to demonstrate its prior win wasn’t a one-off.
NLRB’s Top Prosecutor Seeks Big Changes, Faces Uphill Battle
June 28, 2022 // Abruzzo has signaled it’s one of the many decisions she intends to undo from the Trump era, when cases were spearheaded by her predecessor Peter Robb, who was widely seen by organized labor and Democrats as favoring employers. Biden later fired Robb. “The hypocrisy is off the charts when you think about the employee rights,” Nix said. “When she gets done with the job, she ought to apply for the lobbyist job at the AFL-CIO, because she’s going even farther than union officials have even imagined.” John Logan, San Francisco State University, pro-union experts,
Foxx, Burr, Allen, Braun Call NLRB to Account for Curbing Employers’ Freedom of Speech
June 27, 2022 // Today, House Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC); Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Republican Leader Richard Burr (R-NC); Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Republican Leader Rick Allen (R-GA); and Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee Republican Leader Mike Braun (R-IN) sent a letter to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo regarding guidance that flies in the face of decades of precedent and threatens employers’ First Amendment rights.
New NLRB Case Threatens Employers’ Rights to Counter Union Campaigns
June 7, 2022 // In addition, unions are generally permitted to engage in conduct during a campaign—such as making promises to employees about wage and benefit increases, and calling, texting, and visiting employees at home—that employers cannot. Since 1948, captive audience meetings have been repeatedly upheld by the Board as a lawful and legitimate exercise of employers’ free speech rights, but NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo appears poised to attempt to overturn this decades-long precedent. JD Supra, Daniel Strader
As Union Organizing Actions Skyrocket, The NLRB Seeks To Bar Employers From Holding Mandatory Meetings With Employees About Unions
April 14, 2022 // This confirms what other recent signs have illustrated, i.e., that unions are uniquely positioned at this time to organize new groups of workers. Because a petition for a union to represent a new group requires evidence that at least 30% of the employees support the union (as is the case for the vast majority of these petitions), this increase appears to be objective evidence that support for unions has increased among U.S. workers. There have been many other similar indicators of late, such as unions' recent success in organizing workers at Starbucks, many historically non-union retailers, and distribution facilities which have drawn national attention.