Posts tagged Obama administration
Commentary: Is the NLRB Unconstitutional? The Courts May Finally Decide.
December 6, 2023 // While many agencies act politically, the Board is a special problem. Unlike other agencies, the Board makes almost all its decisions not through rulemaking, but through one-off panel decisions. That means it can change policy much faster. The “law” can swing wildly from case to case. In fact, according to one study, the Board during the Obama administration reversed a group of decisions that had been on the books for more than a collective 4,500 years. The Board’s constitutional flaws are also different from those of other agencies. For example, in a recent case involving the SEC, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the agency’s structure violated the Seventh Amendment. That was because the SEC can impose civil fines—the kind of claims that must be tried to a jury. The Board has no authority to impose civil fines, so it doesn’t have the same Seventh Amendment problem. Its problem instead comes instead from its unchecked power to decide cases. It controls the outcome in disputes affecting a range of private rights. And those disputes, according to Article III of the Constitution, should be decided only by real judges.
New federal rule could allow millions of workers to more easily unionize at big companies
November 16, 2023 // The rule only applies to labor relations. The Department of Labor sets its own joint employment standards for issues like meeting minimum wage requirements. Still, the new rule could have a major impact. Local franchise owners employ more than 8 million people in the U.S., according to the International Franchise Association. Millions more work for subcontractors or temporary agencies.
Commentary: New Biden ‘Joint Employer’ regulation is a boon for unions
November 13, 2023 // In short, joint employment is a possible means for unions to organize major corporations all at once, rather than the piecemeal process of organizing workers at one location at a time. Incidentally, two of the board’s three Democrat majority members are David Prouty, former general counsel of the service employee union UNITE HERE, and Gwynne Wilcox, a former lawyer for the Service Employees International Union. Chairwoman Lauren McFerran served as a staffer of former Sen. Tom Harkin, a longtime union ally.
Case Headed to NLRB Might Prohibit Employers from Holding ‘Captive Audience’ Meetings
October 12, 2023 // Another term for a captive audience meeting is "employer speech during a union campaign," said Daniel Johns, an attorney with Cozen O'Connor in Philadelphia. The purpose of the communication is to give the employer the opportunity to speak to employees about unionization during a campaign, a right protected by the First Amendment, he said. Such meetings are currently prohibited only within 24 hours prior to a union election. If the NLRB bans captive audience meetings across the board, employers "would be severely limited in their ability to communicate with their employees regarding unionization," Toppel said. A captive audience meeting educates employees about unions, the cost of unions, and what unions can and can't do, said James Redeker, an attorney with Duane Morris in Philadelphia. Also, there is education about how unions get employees to sign union authorization cards.
Why the Obama era ‘car czar’ thinks striking autoworkers risk overplaying their hand
October 3, 2023 // Because you have to put the whole thing in context. GM and Ford and Chrysler are doing quite well at the moment. They have cash, they have profits, they have the ability to pay them more, but they also have to compete against other companies. And in the South, you have companies like Toyota and Honda that don't have unions at all. In Mexico, you have workers making literally $9 or $10 a day and are very productive, according to what auto executives tell me. And so, if the Detroit companies have an excessively high burden of wage costs, or fringe benefit costs, then they can't compete. They lose car sales. Ultimately, the workers lose jobs and the jobs move to these other places.
Biden administration working overtime to regulate working overtime
September 5, 2023 // ederal law says employees must be paid time and a half once they work more than 40 hours in a week. However, businesses may exempt workers from the requirement if their duties are “managerial” in nature and they reach a certain salary threshold. Currently, workers had to earn at least $35,500 annually before they were covered. The new rule, which goes into effect at the end of the year, raises that by almost $20,000. The administration estimates this would extend the rule to 3.6 million additional workers. The problem with the change is that it limits employers’ ability to work out alternate arrangements with employees where they work more than 40 hours in exchange for some other consideration, such as additional time off on other weeks. Under the new rule, employers are more likely to simply cut hours than to have to pay overtime at all.
OSHA Prepares to Join Administration-Wide Effort to Aid Unions
June 20, 2023 // OSHA has indicated it will push a labor agenda with an anticipated rulemaking that would allow union officials to join OSHA officials during walk-around inspections at non-union locations.
Sysco Picketing Lawsuit Hinges on Standard for Secondary Strikes
April 18, 2023 // The conflict arose earlier this month after Sysco workers in Indiana and Kentucky went on strike over wages and retirement benefits. Sysco workers belonging to Teamsters Local 117 in Washington state followed suit, exercising a clause of their contract that allows them to refuse to cross a “lawful, primary picket line,” according to court records. In a complaint filed in US District Court for the Western District of Washington, Sysco Seattle argued that the workers there couldn’t join the picket because its operation is a separate entity from Sysco Louisville and Sysco Indianapolis.
Biden OSHA Revives Union-, Worker-Friendly Inspection Rep Rule
January 19, 2023 // “It was a backdoor way to unionize, outside the bargaining process,” Conn said, adding that she’s not surprised the policy is seeing a revival considering the Biden administration’s pro-union stance. Who Gets Say This OSHA rule could clarify the role of union representatives during inspections, said Steve Sallman, director of safety and health for the United Steelworkers. Employers with union workforces generally understand that their employees can designate a union local member to participate in an inspection, Sallman said. But there have been problems when a national union office sends a staff member who isn’t an employee at the workplace to participate in an inspection, Sallman said. Employers have refused to let national union representatives into worksites, sometimes leading to OSHA seeking a court order to allow the participation.
What Home-Based Care Agencies Should Know About The Independent Contractor Proposed Rul
November 29, 2022 // “In other words, just the ability to manage somebody that is not exercised in any way can be considered employment. I think that takes it a step too far. The question should really be about what is actually occurring, not what is possible.”