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Labor Relations / Unions

‘Don’t say pay’ policy violates federal labor law

04/21/2022
Last month, a Kentucky fitness center went viral after a photo circulated of a breakroom wall notice that read, “Effective immediately, conversing about wages (both on and off duty) is strictly forbidden … If you are overheard speaking (or listening to!!) a conversation in which wages are discussed, you will receive disciplinary action.”

Is misclassification an unfair labor practice?

04/21/2022
Employers struggling to correctly classify independent contractors already have to worry about complying with Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service rules. They may soon have to add the National Labor Relations Board to the list of federal agencies looking over their shoulders.

Lessons learned from Amazon’s big union loss

04/14/2022
The big labor story of the year is that e-commerce giant Amazon has lost its multimillion-dollar fight to remain union-free. How Amazon lost that election carries lessons for employers eager to avoid a similar fate.

Busy six months for NLRB, handling more petitions, ULP charges

04/12/2022
Between October 2021 and March 2022, the National Labor Relations Board processed 57% more union representation petitions than it did a year earlier.

Heed NLRA rules when discouraging unions

03/31/2022
Organized labor is on a roll, with union elections making news everywhere from Amazon warehouses to John Deere factories to Starbucks coffee houses. The trend has employers wondering what they can do to thwart union organizing activities.

EFCA rises again in House bill, but will it survive conference?

02/08/2022
Pro-union measures that were once part of the dreaded, never-enacted Employee Free Choice Act made it into the final version of the America COMPETES Act of 2022 that passed in the House of Representatives on Feb. 4.

Unionization: Avoid Amazon’s labor mistakes

02/03/2022
Employers need to get up to speed now on how to respond to the threat of union organizing. Perhaps no organization provides better lessons on how not to respond than retail giant Amazon.

Union membership fell in 2021

01/27/2022
Only 10.3% of American workers belonged to a union in 2021, down from 10.8% in 2020 and matching 2019’s unionization rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics attributed the 2020 spike to pandemic-related job losses concentrated in nonunion workplaces.

NLRB to review validity of mandatory arbitration clauses

01/25/2022
The National Labor Relations Board has begun exploring whether confidentiality requirements in mandatory arbitration agreements violate Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act.

Respond to unions targeting small workplaces

01/20/2022
Labor unions achieved their greatest success in the 1950s by organizing large blocks of employees, such as everyone working at a steel mill or auto plant. Lately, unions have enjoyed a small but significant renaissance by convincing small groups of employees to join.