Government-imposed stay-at-home orders, essential business designations, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, and employers’ duty to bargain under the National Labor Relations Act recently collided. To complicate matters, unions have proven very aggressive in their demands for information about employer’s responses to COVID-19.
Many unions have demanded decision bargaining over layoffs, or changes in health
As the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) spreads into the broader economy, human resource professionals are finding that grappling with the consequences are more complicated in union-represented workforces. In a union workforce, the employer must determine what it has already agreed it will do, the extent of its freedom to address the scenarios created by COVID-19, and the legal framework within which it must act. Below we offer several considerations for employers to adopt.
First, examine the collective bargaining agreement. This will allow you to determine the extent of the company’s freedom to act independently and expeditiously. The place to start is to determine management’s right to schedule work, to idle the plant, to send workers home and to lay-off employees. Determine the restrictions, if any, in these rights, such as call-in pay or weekly guarantees.Continue Reading Managing COVID-19 In A Union Workforce In The US
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in First Student Inc. v. NLRB suggests the judicially-created “perfectly clear” successorship standard to determine whether a company inherited its predecessor’s bargaining agreement is ripe for a challenge.
A divided panel concluded that under the National Labor Relations Act, the “perfectly clear” successor standard applied to a successor
This week, the National Labor Relations Board finally came to its senses and adopted the contract coverage test for cases alleging an employer had unlawfully, unilaterally changed employees’ terms and conditions of employment. MV Transportation, Inc. 368 NLRB No. 66 (2019). This week’s decision is likely to change the forum unions select for the enforcement of their labor agreements. Ironically, the decision may compel employers to consider additional bargaining rather than litigation before an arbitrator given there is little opportunity to appeal an adverse arbitration award.
Continue Reading The NLRB Acknowledges The Inevitable And Adopts The Contract Coverage Test
In August, the National Labor Relations Board issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to address three rather limited situations involving employee representation issues. These proposed rules follow 70-plus years of experimentation with a hodgepodge of ad hoc one-off decisions, dramatic changes and frequent reversals in the process of enabling employees to exercise their rights under
As of August 1, companies doing business in Mexico can anticipate that unions will move quickly to legitimize existing collective agreements under a new government-issued protocol. Among other steps, the process includes a vote by covered employees to determine whether they approve the terms of the agreement. Collective agreements must be legitimized by May 1
(With thanks to our colleagues in Mexico for this alert.)
On January 25, 2019, more than 45,000 employees from 45 different manufacturing sites in Matamoros, Tamaulipas initiated a strike, which was allegedly incited by an activist outside the region. Their demands were a 20% salary increase and a significant increase in annual bonus to MXN $32,251.40 (about USD $1,600) per employee.Continue Reading How To Prepare Your Company For The Shifting Union Environment In Mexico
(Thank you to our Baker McKenzie colleagues in Mexico for sharing this alert.)
As a result of a change in government leadership and recently signed laws and treaties, companies in Mexico now have an important “to do” for 2019: prepare to review any unions that are “on the books” and assess compliance in this new environment.
What are “White Unions”?
What changed?Continue Reading Companies Doing Business In Mexico Need To Revisit Union Relationships
A recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board left experienced labor practitioners scratching their heads. In Tschiggfrie Properties Ltd. v. NLRB, a three-member panel of the Eighth Circuit did more.
The panel vacated the NLRB’s decision in a case involving an employee who was fired for abusing his employer’s Wi-Fi and for sleeping
