As ASE has previously reported, worker union organizing is getting a lot of attention across the country. A recent study by the Worker Empowerment Research Network (WERN) that is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), highlights what union conditions are usually present in the workplace for conditions to be right for organizing. This information also provides employers valuable insight into how they can avoid allowing those conditions to develop in their workplace.

The Biden Administration’s pro-labor policies are being heavily pushed by the agency responsible for overseeing employee and employer labor rights, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB is governed by the law that it is charged with interpreting and administering. This is of course the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

A fascinating conflict between the National Labor Relations Act labor rights interpretation and the Civil Rights Act’s Title VII anti-discrimination protections is growing. Some federal lawmakers are criticizing the National Labor Relations Board for its recent decision that undermined Amazon, the large online retailer, by forcing them to reinstate a worker that was fired because of his crude, sexist, degrading statements made to a female coworker during the organizing campaign.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is working to take out the impediment of organizing elections to further its pro-labor agenda. Holding a secret ballot election is a fundamental step under the National Labor Relations Act in determining whether workers want a union or not.

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a former Special Counsel for the Communications Workers of America union and now the NLRB’s top prosecutor, issued a memo (Memorandum 22-4) to its District Offices last week intended to make it illegal for employers to hold meetings or even meet one-on-one with their employees to discuss union versus union-free in their own workplaces.

In last week’s State of the Union address by President Biden, in addition to his opening focus on the Russian invasion he pointed out four legislative initiatives that he would like to see moved along in the coming months – probably before the mid-term elections if he had his way.

The National Labor Relations Act protects workers' rights to engage in activities intended to allow them to organize into a union. Therefore, most communications intended by workers to support labor organizing are considered protected concerted activity.

Biden’s pro-labor agenda continues to roll. In its next step to promote union membership growth, the Biden Administration issued its report outlining necessary legal and regulatory actions to promote union organizing. This report contains 70 recommendations that may be implemented to facilitate the growth of union membership across the U.S.

Last weekend President Biden announced a new Executive Order barring non-union construction firms and workers from federal construction projects over $35,000,000. This is just the latest pro union move for the self-proclaimed “most pro-union President in U.S. history.”

In case you missed it, last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its union membership data for 2021. Union membership declined by 241,000 to 14,000,000 union members. Total U.S. union membership as a percentage of the workforce declined from 10.8% to 10.3%.

Since 2017 the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has reviewed employer work rules (union and non-union) under its standard adopted in the Boeing Company case and a subsequent case with additional revisions adopted in its LA Specialty Produce Co. case in 2019.

Two major facts are coming out from the Biden Administration’s massive Build Back Better legislation. It is so big it is hard to understand everything it addresses. It is also so big it contains some very pro-labor provisions intended to gag employers’ union-free communications. 

After four years under a republican administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is now shifting back to the priorities of the Obama Administration.  Unionization is favored, and the NLRB will be pushing the envelope to expand the traditional boundaries of the NLRB.  NLRB General Counsel, Jennifer A. Abruzzo, has issued her first memo—Mandatory Submissions to Advice Memorandum (GC 21-04), which lays out a clear agenda as to the priorities of the Office...

In 1894 Labor Day was formally established as a national American holiday to celebrate workers. Labor Day also marks the unofficial close of summer and the start of school.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) held that a California regulation that required employers to allow union organizers onto private property was an illegal taking. The California regulation allowed union organizers to enter and stay on private property for up to three hours a day and for up to 120 days per year. Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid No.20-107 594 U.S ____ (2021). SCOTUS found that this amounted to a government taking of physical property and was illegal under the Fifth and...