Free Republic

With no major labor reform since the 1930s, Democrats are seizing on the opportunity to strengthen workers' rights -- including their ability to unionize. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed the PRO (Protect the Right to Organize) Act, the most pro-worker labor reform in decades, according to the bill’s sponsors, by a vote of 225-206. Though it faces an uphill battle in the 50/50 split Senate, President Joe Biden has said that labor reform is one of his administration’s top priorities. The House passed a version of the bill last year, but it was dead on arrival in the...

The Biden administration is blocking the exits for construction workers who unanimously voted to cut ties with their union. The National Labor Relations Board refused to allow a group of Indiana workers to hold a vote that would decertify their representation with the local carpenters' union despite the group's unanimous support for cutting ties. The group of workers submitted the request to the regional NLRB, which blocked the attempt to decertify. The board's lawyers allege that the workers are engaging in "bad faith" bargaining, according to the case filing. Indiana is a right-to-work state, meaning the state allows employees to...

Acting as prosecutor, judge, and jury, the National Labor Relations Board is just the tip of the iceberg of government agencies wielding far too much power. “No jokes allowed. Ever.” Apparently, this is the new Twitter rule, as The Federalist national news publication faces a joint administrative and judicial broadside at the National Labor Relations Board. What the publication is going through constitutes just one of the many costly, silly, and arguably unconstitutional quasi-judicial proceedings underway throughout the federal bureaucracy.A recent case before the NLRB — in which the agency served as legislator, police, prosecutor, and judge — helps illustrate...

School-bus drivers Billie McClinsey and Brad Mayer didn’t like being represented by the Teamsters and wanted to put the matter to a vote. That should have been straightforward. Federal law provides that if union opponents collect signatures from 30% of their co-workers, they can ask the National Labor Relations Board to schedule a vote. But the process is frequently made convoluted and oppressive. As a result, Messrs. McClinsey and Mayer are trapped—likely indefinitely—in the union they oppose. The NLRB is soliciting comments on proposals to lift barriers that limit workers’ right to remove a union. Messrs. McClinsey and Mayer work...

Union workers can say a lot while under the protection of American labor law. For example: “Go back to Africa, you bunch of —ing losers!” That was only one of the racial epithets shouted in 2012 by picketing Ohio tire workers at a group of replacement employees, many of them black. When the tire company fired one offender, its decision was overturned by an administrative judge. That ruling was upheld by the National Labor Relations Board in a 2016 decision, Cooper Tire . These kinds of precedents, employers say, put them in a bind between labor law and workplace standards—even...

A federal labor complaint has been filed against Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign just days after the Vermont independent had reached an agreement with his campaign's unionized staffers. The complaint posted Monday on the National Labor Relations Board's website and noted by Bloomberg Law alleges several potential violations, including concerted activities (retaliation, discharge, discipline) discharge, illegal interrogation, repudiation and modification of contract. A full text of the labor complaint has not been released yet, and it was filed by an anonymous individual from Iowa. The NLRB allows individuals who are not on the campaign staff to file a labor law violations...

There’s been a significant policy change at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and it’s one that’s been in the works for a while. In the future, when workers grow dissatisfied with their union at their place of employment, the employer, within ninety days of the end of a contract, will be able to suspend bargaining and announce that the union will be ousted at the end of their current contract. The rights of the workers to unionize will still be recognized, but a new election will need to be held to reestablish the union or bring in a different...

Workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted Friday night against forming a factory-wide union, handing a setback to the United Auto Workers’ efforts to gain a foothold among foreign auto facilities in the South. The vote of hourly workers began Wednesday and concluded Friday. Preliminary results show 833 employees voted against representation and 776 voted for it, the German automaker said in a statement. VW said about 93% of the roughly 1,700 eligible employees voted. “Our employees have spoken,” Frank Fischer, president and CEO of Volkswagen Chattanooga, said in the company statement. He said results are pending certification by...

The speed of digital advancements is what drives our economy. Since President Donald Trump took office, America has enjoyed an economic boom, with astonishingly low unemployment numbers and record capital investments in new technology that would have once seemed like science fiction. With our smartphones and wireless data plans, more workers can telecommute today than ever before. This technology advances at lightning speed, which is why America is currently in a race with China and other countries to have a robust 5G network. This would require a massive infrastructure investment to build a network that offers previously impossible connectivity speeds...

Back in 2015, the National Labor Relations Board under Barack Obama essentially redefined the word “employer” when talking about franchise agreements by altering definitions in what’s known as the joint employer standard. At the time, I looked over the final changes and simply concluded, “this is going to be bad.”And it was bad. By allowing labor unions to hold franchisers like McDonald’s responsible for labor practices of their franchisees, despite having no direct control over those policies, they opened the door to all manner of lawsuits, government fines, and other mischiefs. Analysts at the time predicted that it would...

Franchise businesses received a significant boost from the Trump administration on Friday as labor regulators began to unravel one of the Obama administration's most controversial employment policies. The National Labor Relations Board is considering a proposal to reinstate the long-standing interpretation of the joint-employer standard, which maintains that parent or umbrella companies are not liable for labor violations committed solely by franchisees or subcontractors. The Obama administration had scrapped the traditional standard in an effort to hold parent companies accountable even if they played no direct role in the workplace violation, giving labor unions a foot in the door for...

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Janus vs AFSCME ended a practice of abuse of public sector employees by their unions. The decision prevents unions from forcing the payment of dues by non-members and is a major victory for our civil servants. Now it is time to stop similar corrupt tactics used by unions to force private sector non-union employees to pay dues. Thanks to a hand-out by the Obama National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), unions can collect involuntary dues from former members who recently cancelled membership. In 2013, the NLRB overturned the 1962 Bethlehem Steel decision, which set the...

The Senate voted 50-48 Wednesday to confirm business lawyer John Ring to fill the open seat on the National Labor Relations Board, the federal government's main labor law enforcement agency, "giving the five-member board a majority consisting of President Trump's appointees through at least 2020"..... The board achieved a reputation for pro-union activism during the Obama administration, which the Trump White House and congressional Republicans have been eager to reverse. "Mr. Ring will be a principled and objective voice on the NLRB, and not a rubber stamp to special interests that were in favor during the Obama administration. We commend...

Critics say NLRB watchdog's conflict of interest memo unfairly targets GOP appointees A Trump-appointed labor arbiter is under fire for reversing one of the Obama administration's most controversial rulings, leading to a conflict of interest complaint that could hinder future appointees. William Emanuel joined the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency in charge of settling workplace disputes and overseeing union elections, in September, giving the GOP control of the five-member board for the first time in a decade. The Republican majority wasted little time in reversing some of the Obama administration's most consequential rulings. The biggest turnaround came in...

The Supreme Court could be responsible for the most far-reaching change to labor policy in 2018, as the justices will take up a case that could end the practice of forcing government workers to pay union dues. In September, the justices announced they would hear Janus v. American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees. Unions such as AFSCME depend on those funds and are likely to face steep membership and dues losses if the practice ends. Public-sector unions now account for roughly half of the labor movement, so a loss could be a blow to union power. The case...

This isn’t getting anywhere near the same amount of oxygen in the news cycle as the Net Neutrality story, but it certainly should be. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under the tenure of Barack Obama was busy handing out all sorts of goodies to the unions which finance most Democratic political campaigns. One particular burr under the collective, conservative saddle was a new “reinterpretation” of rules regarding the obligations of larger corporations who authorize the operation of franchises under their name. I wrote about this back in 2015 when the rule was originally finalized and it was a deplorable...

The nation's top labor board reversed an Obama-era decision targeting franchise businesses, but advocates and legal experts say Congress needs to take action to resolve the issue permanently. The Democrat-controlled National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union elections and workplace disputes, overturned decades of precedent in 2015 by holding parent businesses accountable for workplace violations committed by franchisees or subcontractors. The Obama board's decision roiled the business community, particularly franchise corporations, which allow small business owners to operate under a company umbrella but do not manage day-to-day workplace policies. A 3-2 Republican majority returned to the previous standard on Thursday...

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is asking the public to weigh in on whether it should keep or scrap a controversial Obama-era rule that speeds up union elections. Business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been pushing the NLRB to roll back the rule, which allows elections to be held in as few as 10 days from the filing of a petition. Opponents have dubbed it the “ambush election rule,” claiming it gives employers little notice of an election and almost no time to discuss the issues with their workers. “The rule is heavily, heavily slanted to...

Business lawyer Peter Robb, President Trump's pick as the next general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, told a Senate panel Wednesday that he would uphold the "core values" of federal labor law. He said that would include the right to "refrain" from union activity. The board is the top federal labor law enforcement agency."I have always believed in the core values expressed in the [National Labor Relations] Act, which can be paraphrased as protecting the rights of employees to engage in union or other protected, concerted activity with respect to wages, hours and working conditions as well as...

A Senate panel on Wednesday advanced the nominations of two lawyers picked by President Trump to fill the open seats on the National Labor Relations Board. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 12-11 along party lines to send the nominations of Marvin Kaplan and William Emanuel to the floor for a full vote. Kaplan now serves as chief counsel for the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Emanuel, an attorney with the law firm Littler Mendelson, works on labor and employment matters and has represented clients before the NLRB. With their nominations to the five-member board, Trump...