• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Labor Relations / Unions

Beware retaliation against activist employees

10/07/2021
Amazon has agreed to settle allegations it retaliated against two former employees who organized demonstrations decrying the retail giant’s environmental impact and helped employees protest working conditions.

NLRB: Student-athletes may be employees

10/05/2021
NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a guidance memo on Sept. 29 advising the board’s field staff that “certain” NCAA athletes “are employees under the National Labor Relations Act, and, as such, are afforded all statutory protections.”

NLRB spells out relief for victims of unfair labor practices

09/14/2021
National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo has directed NLRB regional officials to ensure workers and unions harmed by violations of the National Labor Relations Act “are made whole for losses they have suffered.”

NLRB agenda: Overturn Trump-era decisions favoring employers

08/17/2021
Less than a month into her term as the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo wasted no time putting her stamp on the board’s agenda. Abruzzo moved into her new office on July 22. On Aug. 12, she issued an advisory memo that signals a likely effort to reverse many of the NLRB’s Trump-era decisions. 

Infrastructure legislation notable for what’s not in it

08/10/2021
The massive infrastructure bill moving through the U.S. Senate would provide $1.2 trillion to build and repair roads, bridges and tunnels; modernize the nation’s utilities; expand broadband coverage; and address climate change. One thing it won’t do: Advance the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.

PRO Act gets Senate hearing as unions gain political traction

07/27/2021
The Protecting the Right to Organize Act—pro-union legislation that has already passed in the House of Representatives—was the topic of a lengthy July 22 hearing by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The hearing won’t lead directly to passage in the Senate, but it could elevate union organizing as a campaign issue in the 2022 mid-term elections.

Supreme Court limits union-organizing access

07/06/2021
The U.S. Supreme Court has handed employers a victory in the struggle to keep labor unions at bay, restricting the amount of time organizers can spend at worksites persuading employees to join a union.

Dems to control NLRB as Biden nominates two union-side lawyers

06/29/2021
David Prouty, currently general counsel of the Service Employee International Union’s largest local, would replace outgoing Republican NLRB member William Emanuel, whose term ends in August.

High Court: Only 3 cases affected employers

06/29/2021
No case in this term rose to the level of last year’s Bostock v. Clayton County, a blockbuster decision that said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because they are gay or transgender. However, these cases matter to employers.

Biden administration pro-union tilt has begun

06/03/2021
The Trump administration took a generally pro-employer stance on labor-relations issues. Months into President Biden’s term, it is clear that is changing.