|
|
In this issue:
Union Bailout Update Bill Would Permit Merit Pay in Union Shops Machinists Striking Once a Member Always a Member Labor Relations Insight, Sticky Fingers and more…
NOTICE: You can make a PDF of this issue of INK directly from the post. Click here for instructions on how to do so.
http://lrionline.com/easy-way-to-make-our-posts-and-ink-issues-into-pdfs
**********
Labor Relations Insight by Phillip Wilson
What have we learned in the first week of the “ambush election” rules?
There are two questions I’ve been asked a lot over the last couple of months, and especially in the last week:
Will petitions increase after the new “ambush election” rules go into effect? How far will election times decrease under the new “ambush election” rules?
Here’s what we’ve seen
Continue reading INK May 10, 2012
There are two questions I’ve been asked a lot over the last couple of months, and especially in the last week:
Will petitions increase after the new “ambush election” rules go into effect? How far will election times decrease under the new “ambush election” rules?
Here’s what we’ve seen in the first 8 days under the new “ambush” rules.
Have petitions increased? Maybe. There was a year over year increase in petition activity over the first week of May. The chart below shows a comparison of petition activity from May 1-8 during the last 5 years.
If you just compare to last year, it looks like a pretty big jump (a 46% increase).
Continue reading Labor Relations Insight by Phillip Wilson: What Have We Learned In The First Week Of The “Ambush Election” Rules
 The NLRB’s ambush election rules went into effect last week and it’s still too soon to gauge the impact. There has so far been no surge of petitions and it may be several weeks before we have any real understanding of the new length of the average election period.
The ambush rules went into effect on Monday April 30 after a U.S. District Court in D.C. denied a request by the Chamber of Commerce to temporarily enjoin implementation. The court is expected to rule by May 15 on the merits of the Chamber’s case, before any elections would likely take place under ambush rules. (Earlier this month the U.S. Court of Appeals enjoined the NLRB poster rule until September.) This all comes as a pointless legislative effort
Continue reading Union Bailout Update
 Last summer, the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters imposed a $300,900 fine on Nathaniel Musser, a former union member who crossed a picket line and went to work for a non-union company, claiming Musser was still part of the union. According to his attorney Musser could not find work through the union’s hiring hall, so he went out looking for it on his own. And once the union found out they filed internal charges against him. Musser filed charges with the NLRB but no settlement of those charges has been made public.
According to court documents, the union makes it difficult if not impossible to withdraw from the union. “If he would have known about a way to resign, he would have resigned before he worked for a non-union
Continue reading Once a Member Always a Member
 The NLRB’s inspector general Dave Berry released exhibits last week from his ethics investigation of newly appointed Board member Terence Flynn. Included were copies of about fifty email exchanges between Flynn and former Board members Kirsanow and Schaumber while Flynn was serving as chief counsel to Schaumber and later current Board member Brian Hayes. The exhibits also include a transcript of Flynn’s March 15 interview with investigators and Flynn’s formal response to the accusations.
The March 15 transcript includes verbal sparring between Berry and Flynn’s legal counsel over the legitimacy of the investigation. Flynn’s team has characterized the behavior in question as “innocuous” (and most likely typical for Board staff) and the information passed along by Flynn “non-substantive.” They also accused the IG of cherry-picking
Continue reading Union Bailout Update
 Not to be out-done by the dramatics over at the NLRB, Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has approved a series of motivational posters for DOL employees (Jealous?) that elevate Solis from lifelong do-nothing political appointee to transformational leader in the war to stop the capitalist re-enslavement of all mankind.
The poster is raising more than a few eyebrows in Washington for what seems a fairly inelegant attempt to radicalize a government agency that should at least at times appear even-handed. In a letter to Solis complaining about the posters, Rep. Joe Walsh, R-IL said some department employees have complained to him about the posters’ bald-faced politicizing of their work and the veiled call to civil disobedience.
The first poster features a backlit close-up
Continue reading Taking it to the Streets, DOL Style
 An employee of Complete Cleaning in Lynn, MA has filed a complaint with the NLRB against SEIU Local 615 in Boston, accusing union organizers of harassment and coercion in the union’s ongoing push to unionize Complete Cleaning’s 80 member workforce. The National Right to Work Foundation is aiding that employee with his complaint.
Employee Jairo Hernandez says he speaks for most of his co-workers when he talks about fear tactics, harassing house visits and relentless pressure on both the workers and the company to unionize. “There has never been a vote but they’re trying to force us,” Hernandez said. “They have gone to a lot of the (employees’) houses and I don’t know how they got the addresses … We’re tired of this. One lady was telling (workers) that
Continue reading SEIU Watch
UPDATE 4/17/12: DC Court of Appeals granted an injunction against the posting rule! They have scheduled to hear oral arguments some time in September. Download a copy of the filing here.
UPDATE: You can get a copy of the decision here. We haven’t read carefully yet, but it is a “clean kill” of the posting rule, granting summary judgment to the US and South Carolina Chambers of Commerce against the NLRB on the basis that the Board lacks statutory authority to require a notice posting rule.
What does this mean for employers? Well, if you live in the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division I think it is safe to say that the Board will not be able to enforce the notice posting rule against you, at least until either this case or the earlier DC Circuit case
Continue reading UPDATED: Federal Judge Rules Against Poster Rule
 Since those controversial “recess” appointments that kicked off the new year it’s been quiet over at the NLRB – almost too quiet – but not anymore.
On March 15, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asked the Court of Appeals to add its recess appointment challenge to an appeal of a Board ruling against a small bottling company in Washington State, Noel Canning. The Chamber will challenge the constitutionality of the President’s emergency “recess” appointments, arguing in part that the appointments denied the Senate’s Constitutional right to review all candidates.
Ironically, the one “recess” appointee the Senate did have the opportunity to vet, Republican Terence Flynn was accused last week of breaches of ethical conduct by an internal Board investigation. As a result, Flynn could lose his appointment.
Flynn was
Continue reading Union Bailout Update
 Over the next month the Board will also be busy rolling out new Web pages that emphasize to employees their right to participate in “concerted activity” with or without a union presence. Although currently 90% of the NLRB’s workload comes from complaints around union-related activity, the Board is apparently now keenly interested in expanding its meddling into shops that don’t even have a union in the mix…just yet.
The Board is creating new web content to capitalize on what will likely be its website’s highest traffic levels ever on and around Poster Day, April 30. Employers are expected to make repeated visits to download materials or check for updates, and their employees will then (in theory) swarm the site as
Continue reading Posting Rule Update: Brace for Concerted Activity!
Page 1 of 1812345...Next »Last »
|
