Labor Thoughts – Labor Peace Agreements, Split in Organized Labor, $400,000...
Labor Peace Agreements Leading to Successful Organizing: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Workplace Freedom Initiative has released a new report, “Labor Peace Agreements: Local Government as a Union...
View ArticleWhat Inflatable Rats Are Doing At Picket Lines
Do you wonder why a large inflatable rat stands nearby when a union is picketing? In the building trades, “rat” is a term that unions sometimes use to refer to a non-union contractor. A union...
View ArticleWill the Supreme Court Neuter Neutrality Agreements?
For a labor law attorney like myself, today is Christmas morning at the Supreme Court. In contrast to most labor law cases which reach the High Court and usually involve procedural and/or...
View ArticleWhen Must Employers Permit Union Activities On Company Property?
Management-side labor attorneys often are spoilsports when it comes to outside groups entering company property to peddle their wares. Many employers think they are being the benevolent boss by...
View ArticleThoughts on Unionizing College Athletes
Even with the hoopla surrounding March Madness there has been equally compelling news regarding college football despite the fact that that sport is not even in season. The National Labor Relations...
View ArticleSay What? NLRB ALJ Finds Hospital’s English-Only Rule Unlawful
The latest office fodder for me and my colleague, Jason Usher (who formerly worked at the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”)), involves an Administrative Law Judge’s (“ALJ”) decision, Valley...
View ArticleNLRB Final Rule Expediting Union Elections Takes Effect Next Week
Absent an injunction issuing in one of the pending cases challenging the National Labor Relations Board’s Final Rule substantially revising its representation case procedures, the rules become...
View ArticleEmployees Reject Union in One of the First “Quickie Elections”
In 1947, Shawe Rosenthal’s founder, Earle K. Shawe, filed the first unfair labor practice charge against a union under the Taft-Hartley Act. Now, in another major labor law first, S&R represented a...
View ArticleLA Labor Unions Seek Exemption From Minimum Wage Increase – Oh the Irony!
Admittedly, as a management-side labor and employment lawyer, I am not always a big fan of the unions. And a recent story in the LA Times just reinforced my negative attitude. As many of you know,...
View ArticleLabor Organizing: There’s About To Be An App For That
Recently, The Century Foundation, a group that pursues “non-partisan research and policy analysis” released a report on virtual labor organizing. The report assesses how a mobile application (“app”) or...
View ArticleCourt Finally Brings Sanity to NLRB Prison Garb Decision
AT&T Connecticut and the Communications Workers of America were embroiled in bitter contract negotiations in 2009. Among other efforts to let the public know about the dispute, employees, many of...
View ArticleNLRB Rejects Union for College Football Players
The National Labor Relations Board on Monday dismissed a petition filed by Northwestern football players who were seeking to unionize. In what is widely viewed as a surprising decision by the...
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NLRB Imposes Expansive (and Onerous) Requirements For Preparation of Voter List
As you may know, the National Labor Relations Board substantially revised the rules governing the union elections process, by which employees choose whether or not they wish to be represented by a...
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Union Violates Employee’s Labor Rights
As a management-side labor firm, we are constantly in opposition to unions. So we particularly enjoy the irony when a union – as an employer – is found to have violated the National Labor Relations...
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NLRB Says “No Recordings” Rule Is Illegal
In the latest round of extreme workplace rulings, the National Labor Relations Board has found yet another reasonable employer work rule to violate the National Labor Relations Act. In this case, Whole...
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Return of the Beast: Religious Accommodation Redux
Back around Halloween, we offered you a seasonally appropriate and cautionary tale about accommodating an employee’s religious concerns. As we discussed in that blog about the case of EEOC v. Consol...
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Political Paraphernalia in the Workplace
As a follow up to my last post on political discussions in the workplace, I thought it might be helpful to employers to discuss other, material aspects of politics in the workplace – such as campaign...
View ArticleDOL Issues Persuader Rule
On March 23, 2016, the Department of Labor released the long-pending revisions to the “persuader rule,” drastically expanding employers’ disclosure requirements regarding their use of union avoidance...
View ArticleShawe Rosenthal and Worklaw Just Sued the DOL
Although the government is often a thorn in the side of many of our clients, it is not every day that we decide to sue the government. Today was a different story. On March 31, 2016, Shawe Rosenthal,...
View ArticleNLRB’s Quickie Election Rule Turns One
“I’ve known Bob Rumson for years and I’ve been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn’t get it. Well, I was wrong....
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