On May 29, 2018, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernard Sanders, and Kirsten Gillibrand sent a letter to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chairman expressing their concerns about the Agency’s announcement on joint-employer rulemaking. Chairman John F. Ring responded in a 3-page letter this week, denouncing their accusations of prejudgment. Of note is his announcement regarding…
The Supreme Court issued a decision today on NLRB vs Murphy Oil USA that establishes arbitration agreements which provide for individualized proceedings as lawful and enforceable and allows employers to maintain such class-action waiver agreements. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has 55 pending cases regarding employers who maintain or enforce individual arbitration agreements or policies containing class- and collective-action…
Where do our rights to free speech start and end? Specifically, where does free speech at work start and end? If one particular bill was to become law in Connecticut, the answer to that question would become much more difficult. There is a bill before the General Assembly that would restrict employers’ speech rights. It…
BREAKING NEWS: The Senate has approved two nominations this week that will make a large impact on Labor. Patrick Pizzella was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of Labor on April 12, 2018. US Senator Lamar Alexander released the following statement regarding his confirmation: “As we learned at his confirmation hearing last July—Patrick Pizzella is well-qualified to…
This morning, Morning Consult published an article I wrote detailing the need to eliminate “ambush elections,” enacted under the Obama administration, which allow unions to call for an election in as little as 10 days from when a petition is filed, circumventing both democratic process and proper alignment of employee needs. NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb…
WASHINGTON, March 14, 2018 — Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement after the committee approved four nominees with “impressive qualifications.” Alexander on John Ring, nominated to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board: “Mr. Ring has varied experiences that will be a strength…
A recent letter from the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions to the Department of Labor has called for the Department to close loopholes that allow Work Centers to operate like unions, but without any of the federal oversight laws that apply to the unions, like financial transparency and prohibition from intimidation practices. In…
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) voted 3-0 to vacate their decision in Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors, Ltd. and Brandt Construction Co., 365 NLRB No. 156 (2017) on the basis that the Board’s Designated Agency Ethics Official determined Emanuel should have been disqualified from participating in the Hy-Brand proceeding. Emanuel did not participate in the vote. As a result of…
Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo recently got into an argument with Philip Jennings, general secretary of UNI Global Union, over President Trump’s tax cuts and policies for workers. Jennings claimed the President is “stacking the odds against working people coming together and getting a collective voice” while Bartiromo accused Jennings of “demonizing American workers who…
Union membership has remained stagnant in 2017, according to a January 19 report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Unions remained at 10.7%, adding only 262,000 members over 2016. In contrast, union participation rates were 20.1% in 1983, when union data was first compiled. Data was collected from a Current Population Survey of…
