NLRB Upends Franchising And Contracting In Landmark Case

In a decision involving Browning-Ferris Industries, federal labor officials Wednesday drastically changed a rule impacting contractors and franchises across the country.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, a company can be considered an employer over a company it contracts with if it has significant control over its employees. Known as the joint-employer standard, the rule helps to resolve labor disputes when it’s not clear what company the dispute arose from. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is tasked with solving such disputes.

“In this decision, we consider whether the Board should adhere to its current standard for assessing joint-employer status under the National Labor Relations Act or whether that standard should be revise to better effectuate the purposes of the Act, in the current economic landscape,” the NLRB decision noted.

Cases involving McDonald’s, CNN, and Browning-Ferris have provided the NLRB the opportunity to revisit the standard. The Browning-Ferris decision means the standard will expand significantly to include more businesses that contract with one another.

Via: Daily Caller

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NLRB boots idea of unionized college atheletes

When an NLRB director in Illinois made the decision last year to allow student athletes at Northwestern University to organize as a union it raised a lot of eyebrows. (How does one organize the labor of people who don’t get paid?) But that question has now been effectively scrapped as the full NLRB has said no to the proposal.

The National Labor Relations Board on Monday overturned a historic ruling that gave Northwestern University football players the go-head to form the nation’s first college athletes’ union, saying the prospect of union and non-union teams could throw off the competitive balance in college football.

The decision throws out a March 2014 ruling by a regional NLRB director in Chicago who said that college the football players are effectively school employees and entitled to organize. Monday’s decision did not directly address the question of whether football players are employees.

The labor dispute goes to the heart of American college sports, where universities and conferences reap billions of dollars, mostly through broadcast contracts, by relying on amateurs who are not paid. In other countries, college sports are small-time club affairs, while elite youth athletes often turn pro as teens.

From the beginning of this brouhaha I’ve felt that this was a solution in search of a problem. It seems to me that we either have to jointly decide that college athletes are amateurs or they are professionals. It’s a distinction which applies outside of colleges as well, and you can still compete in other sports at the highest levels while retaining amateur status. (The US Open in golf, for example. Also, almost all boxers start out as amateurs for a while before they can take their first professional fight.) If they are amateurs then they need to put in their time until they can turn pro. But if we are to treat college athletes as professionals who are owed some sort of compensation – particularly the football and basketball players – then the entire idea of this being a “side activity” in support of their education pretty much goes out the window.

But at the same time, it’s getting rather hard to ignore the hypocrisy inherent in the system. We’ve seen far too many stories about student athletes who graduate and receive a degree and some of them can barely read. This is something of an embarrassment for those who wind up in the NBA or the NFL, but it’s an absolute disaster for the kids who can’t make the cut and find themselves out on the streets with a sheepskin, but no skills and no ability to get a decent job outside of sports. Still, it seems like setting them up with some cash while supposedly being amateurs working on their studies compounds the problem rather than confronting it.

One last point to note is the reaction of the NLRB themselves. If they say no to unionizing somebody… it must be a really bad idea.

Via: Hot Air

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[VIDEO] National Right To Work President Mark Mix testifying at the U.S. House hearing “The NLRB’s Assault on Right To Work” (6/3/2015)

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Via: National Right to Work Committee

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New Bill Would Guarantee Secret Ballot For Workers

Republicans are pushing for legislation that could fundamentally shift American labor law away from hereditary and coercive unionism.

On Monday, GOP lawmakers in the house and Senate introduced the Employee Rights Act, a bill that would guarantee secret ballot union elections. It also allows workers to hold regular re-certification to see whether unions still enjoy support from members, a stark change from the status quo in which unions inherit members unless employees successfully follow onerous decertification procedures.

Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.) introduced the legislation in Congress with the hope that it will return the focus of labor law to individual workers, rather than businesses and unions.

“Whether it be the right to secret ballots on union elections, an opt-in requirement for union dues be used for political donations, or protection of union coercion or threats – this bill puts the power back to the individual to allow them to use their own conscience in workplace decisions,” Price said at a Monday press conference.

Workers are not always given the opportunity to take an up-or-down vote on unionization. Karen Cox, an employee at Americold Logistics in Rochelle, Ill., has been fighting to decertify the Retailers Union since it used card check procedure to unionize her and about 100 co-workers. She has since petitioned the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union elections, with about 40 other colleagues for a secret ballot election. The agency denied two of those efforts before granting an election. A union appeal led local NLRB officials to throw out the ballots before releasing the result, according to Cox.

“We all thought we were going to have an election, make an informed decision for or against, but they snuck their way in and bypassed a secret ballot election,” she said.  “I totally believe they [the NLRB] were working in the union’s interest over workers.”

Cox said politicians should understand that the status quo of labor relations has drifted away from the worker.

“I think it’s important for [lawmakers] to know that I’m just exercising my rights, and I still face an uphill battle with the NLRB,” she said.

Via: WFB

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Golf Channel Employees May Call Mulligan on Their Union

Workers will hold decertification vote on July 15

A group of cameramen and other technical staffers at the Golf Channel will have the opportunity to break ties with big labor next week after a federal labor arbiter dismissed union objections.

John Gallagher, an employee at the Golf Channel, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board in June after collecting signatures from more than 30 percent of his colleagues. The board, which oversees all union elections, approved his petition, and scheduled a mail-in ballot election that will conclude on Wednesday.

The union became the sole bargaining representative for the technical staff at the Golf Channel in 2013. Gallagher and his supporters had to overcome several legal objections filed by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), an AFL-CIO affiliate.

Union officials argued that they received notice outside the timeline mandated by newly minted election rules approved by the board in April. Claude T. Harrell, Jr., the director of the board’s Atlanta office, approved the petition on Monday following a two-day hearing.

He dismissed union objections, ruling that Gallagher “acted in good faith” and provided adequate notice to union officials.

“While conceding it subsequently received all the required documents from the Region and had no evidence that it was prejudiced, it argues a rule is a rule and therefore the petition must be dismissed. I disagree,” Harrell said.

The ruling raises the possibility that board employees and misunderstandings about the new regulations were to blame.

“Part of the failure to provide the documents could be attributable to the incomplete and confusing instructions the Petitioner received from the Board agent following initial receipt of the petition as to what documents were required and thereafter as to what was required regarding the Statement of Procedure form. Given the newness of the rules, the confusing instructions and his inexperience in filing petitions, it is quite understandable as to the Petitioner’s failures. Accordingly, I find he made a good faith effort to comply with the rules,” he ruled.

The workers received legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Mark Mix, the foundation’s president, praised Harrell for allowing Gallagher to move forward.

“John Gallagher and his fellow employees successfully fought off attempts by IATSE officials to stop them from even having a vote to throw out the unwanted union,” Mix said in a statement. “This case shows the bureaucratic hurdles that union bosses regularly use to hold on to their monopoly power and stifle the will of independent workers.”

IATSE represents technical staff across the country. Because camera operators and other technical staff are spread out around the country, the National Labor Relations Board is arranging a mail-in ballot campaign.

“We hope the employees wishing to exercise their rights through this election will go forward without further delay tactics by union officials; however, history suggests an appeal of the Regional Director’s decision or use of other delaying tactics in an attempt to prevent employees from even having a chance to vote would not be surprising,” Mix said.

IATSE did not return requests for comment about the board’s decision.

Voting will come to an end on July 15.

Via: WFB

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Company Stands By Termination Of Racist Union Member CONNOR D. WOLF

Despite pressure from the federal government to rehire a union protester caught shouting racial slurs, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company has decided to stand by its decision.

“We do not tolerate racist remarks made by employees,” a company spokeswoman told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Our policy was applied in January 2012, when Cooper discharged employee Anthony Runion for making racist statements, which were captured on videotape.”

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided Friday to ignore the racist remarks in its determination the company was wrong to fire the racist employee, because at the time he was involved in a union protest. During the protest Runion allegedly shouted the slurs at the nonunion replacement workers, many of whom were black.

“Hey, did you bring enough KFC for everyone?” Runion, a United Steelworkers (USW) member, shouted to the nonunion workers. “Go back to Africa, you bunch of fucking losers.”

Though Runion admitted to the first comment, he denied telling them to go back home to Africa. After reviewing a tape of the incident, however, the NLRB agreed Runion was the most likely person to have made both comments. Despite this, and an early arbitration decision upholding the termination, the board ordered the company to rehire Runion.

“Cooper’s decision was upheld by an independent arbitrator,” the company spokeswoman noted. “Dissatisfied with this result, the USW pursued an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.”

“Late last week, an Administrative Law Judge with the NLRB sided with the union, ordering Cooper to reinstate Runion’s employment,” the spokeswoman concluded. “As a company that does not tolerate harassment and discrimination under any circumstances, Cooper strongly disagrees with this decision and will appeal it.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Critics: NLRB May Gut ‘Right to Work’ Laws

The federal government’s top labor arbiter may use its regulatory power to force non-union employees in right to work states pay union dues.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) put out a call for legal briefs on Wednesday asking labor law scholars to weigh in on whether unions should have the ability to extract dues payments from non-members. The announcement drew immediate criticism from right to work activists.

“It is unfortunately not surprising that the Obama NLRB is now actively working to undermine the 25 state Right to Work laws. Its ‘call for briefs’ signals this NLRB’s intention to reverse over 60 years of Board precedent to give union bosses an unprecedented tool to eviscerate employees’ Right to Work protections,” Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, said in a release.

“Right to work” laws ban coercive dues systems in which employees must join a union and pay dues as a condition of employment. The laws have passed in 25 states and are spreading in traditional union strongholds: Wisconsin, the birthplace of public sector unions, passed such a law in March, just two years after similar regimes were implemented in Indiana and Michigan.

Unions have fought the law in courts in nearly every state that has adopted the measure, arguing that since labor groups negotiate wages and benefits on behalf of all workers, non-members are “free-riding.” In most cases, those challenges have not prevailed in state or federal courts. Unions in Indiana, for example, filed a flurry of lawsuits intended to block the implementation of the state right to work law. Federal Judge Phillip Simon tossed them out of court in 2013.

Via: Washington Free Beacon

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U.S. Has Cash to Close Memorials, Can’t Afford Enforcing FOIA

The U.S. government can spend money shutting down and barricading memorials around Washington D.C., but it won’t dedicate the necessary resources to obey transparency laws, using the shutdown as an opportunity to ignore the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Without the accountability and transparency that FOIA is meant to provide, the government will essentially operate in secrecy. Nothing, not even a temporary, partisan impasse among lawmakers, should justify a furlough in the enforcement of government transparency laws. But that’s exactly what’s happening, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a decades-old nonprofit that works to protect journalists’ FOIA rights.

“Parts of the federal government have declared transparency non-essential, deciding requests under the Freedom of Information Act will go unprocessed during the shutdown,” the group says in an announcement posted on its website this week. “Some agencies have indicated they won’t even accept FOIA requests until everything is back to normal and have suspended their websites.”  Additionally, those seeking information from federal agencies should be “prepared for longer than usual delays in receiving the requested records,” the group says.

Among the federal agencies that have officially announced they won’t process FOIA requests during the shutdown are the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Others—like the Agriculture, Interior and Transportation departments—have simply disabled their FOIA websites without notifying the public. Some have confirmed “reduced FOIA operations.” They include the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Government Information Services and the National Security Administration (NSA).

Even when FOIA is supposedly in full force, stonewalling and unnecessary delays are the norm when requesting public records from the government. Judicial Watch knows this firsthand because FOIA is a valuable tool in our work and JW files dozens of requests with a number of federal agencies every year. Generally the government must respond to a FOIA request within 20 days, though that rarely occurs and JW must take legal action to force compliance.

Just this week JW filed a FOIA request with the Department of the Interior for information related to blocking public access to national monuments in Washington D.C. due to the federal government shutdown. JW also seeks all records related to the cancellation of planned visits by veterans’ groups to the National World War II Memorial due to the shutdown. In the official request JW reminds the agency of a 2009 memorandum issued by President Obama. It states: “All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA…The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.”

Via: Judicial Watch

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Who Benefits from Collective Bargaining in Education?

Union bosses do — at the expense of good teachers, children, their parents and taxpayers.  

In a tribute to Labor Day, the California Teachers Association has put up a slobbering web page as a paean to the labor movement. Its unintentionally humorous title is “Organized Labor – Proud and Free.”

Free?

Actually, it is very costly. Here in California, a non-right-to-work state, teachers must fork up over $1,000 a year in order to work in a public school. (They can pay a little less if they choose not to support the union’s political agenda.) And all teachers are forced to be a part of the collective bargaining (CB) unit.

Collective bargaining, a term first introduced into the lexicon by socialist Beatrice Webb in 1891, is a process of negotiations between employers and employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions. The workers are commonly represented by a union, and the agreements reached by this arrangement set wage scales, working hours, teacher training, etc.

It sounds like a good deal for teachers, but is it?

“Exclusive representation” (more accurately, monopoly bargaining) privileges are the source of compulsory union power.

Handed to union officials by Congress in the National Labor Relations Act, monopoly bargaining gives union kingpins the leverage to herd workers into unions and then force them to pay union dues.

Under federal law, if union organizers win a representation election by even 50% plus one of those voting, they are empowered to negotiate contracts on behalf of all 100% of the workers. In fact, under some circumstances, union officials become monopoly “representatives” even when most workers are against them! And by law each and every worker loses his or her right to negotiate directly with the employer on his or her own behalf.

So problem #1 with CB is that teachers are forced to go along with the 50 percent plus one even if they would rather negotiate their own contacts.

Via: California Politcal Review

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