Proposed NLRB Rule Requires Employers to Post Workers’ Rights
Most workers have seen notices about their right to a minimum wage or safe workplace posted in the company break room or elsewhere on the job. Employers are required to post those notices by federal law.
But there is no requirement for employers to post any sort of notice about workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), including the right to form a union. Now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is proposing a rule that would require employers to post such notices in the workplace.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the proposed rule is “a common sense policy needed in today’s workplace.”
Every working person in America deserves to know his or her rights… [The rule]…ensures that workers’ rights are effectively communicated in the workplace. It is necessary in the face of widespread misunderstanding about the law and many workers’ justified fear of exercising their rights under it. Read the rest of this entry »
NY Times: Nation’s Labor Laws Weak and Irrelevant
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The New York Times reports that the 75-year old National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the nation’s main labor law, is not getting better with age, but has become irrelevant for most workers and employers.
Reporter Steven Greenhouse highlights a new paper by Harvard Professor Richard Freeman, which finds that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), created by the NLRA, has not improved the process by which workers decide if they want a union. Instead, it has turned union elections in the private sector “into massive employer campaigns against unions.” You can read Greenhouse’s entire article here.
75th Anniversary of National Labor Relations Act: Unions the Answer Then and Now
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In this crosspost from Huffington Post, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis reaffirms the importance of the National Labor Relations Act, which gave workers freedom to form unions.
July 5 marked the 75th anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act—also known as the Wagner Act—one of the lesser known, but key components of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. In addition to Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, a federal minimum wage and laws regulating child labor—all controversial concepts at the time that we now take for granted as basic elements of fairness—the New Deal included the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) which protected workers’ rights to join or form unions and engage in collective bargaining.
The NLRA was signed into law when our nation was in the grip of the Great Depression. At a time when the economy was spinning out of control, some critics were hesitant about a law that empowered workers. Sound familiar?
Employers Must Post Workers’ Rights Info
A just-published Department of Labor rule ensures that workers employed by contractors and subcontractors to the federal government will now know their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
The new rule requires employers to post notices–where workers can see them–that list their rights, including the right to join unions. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the new rule will “provide workers with a clear understanding of their rights.”
Trumka says the action by the Obama administration’s Labor Department helps reverse the Bush era approach to workers
which put corporate interests before workers’ rights. Making sure that workers know their rights on the job will reduce harassment, intimidation and fear in the workplace. Informing workers of their rights will improve employee morale and contribute to positive labor-management relations. Read the rest of this entry »
Beware of the Big Lie Bill
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Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress made their Big Lie into a bill Wednesday, when Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) introduced the so-called Secret Ballot Protection Act.
Before we go further, let’s clear up the bill’s false implication right now:
The Employee Free Choice Act would not—repeat after me—would not, take away the secret ballot National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process if workers seeking to form a union wanted to use it. The Employee Free Choice would ensure workers made the decision of whether to select a union via majority sign-up (card-check) or via ballot process. Choice is good. That’s one reason why we called it Employee Free Choice—because it would enable employees, not management, to make the decision of how to form a union.
The alleged goal of S. 478 is to:
amend the National Labor Relations Act to ensure the right of employees to a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.
