Labor Relations / Unions

Know union rules on probationary employees

10/03/2011

You won’t find many employers extolling the upsides of having a unionized workforce, but there is one advantage. If your union contract provides for a probationary period before an employee becomes a permanent part of your workforce, you may have more discretion in how you discipline the new employee.

Which online comments are protected? NLRB helps explain

09/30/2011

Confusion reigns over when employers are legally allowed to discipline employees for bashing the company on Facebook or other social media sites. Now the NLRB has published a report that summarizes the outcomes and reasoning behind 14 cases it decided in the past year involving employees’ use of social media and the legality of employers’ social media policies.

Cincinnati union leader faces jail time, fines for fraud

09/23/2011

Former Cincinnati city employees’ union president Diana Frey has pleaded guilty to federal charges of embezzling more than $750,000 from the Cincinnati Organized and Dedicated Employees (CODE) union.

What’s the NLRB’s real stance on employees’ social media criticism of employers?

09/21/2011

Q. We’ve heard about the National Labor Relations Board’s focus on an employee’s right to post critical work-related comments on Facebook. However, we also heard that the NLRB has started to limit its view on whether such comments are protected concerted activity. What’s going on?

Display new pro-union poster by Nov. 14

09/19/2011

Make room for another poster on your breakroom wall. The National Labor Relations Board announced last month that most private employers will have to display a new poster in their workplaces that notifies employees of their right to form or join a union. The poster is available now for download on the NLRB website.

NLRB issues final employee rights posting rule

09/16/2011

The National Labor Relations Board has announced its final rule on Notification of Employee Rights under the National Labor Relations Act. The proposed rule had been pending since December of last year. Now that it is final, employers have until Nov. 14 to put up an official poster stating that employees have a right to form or join a union.

Appeals court sends card check case to arbitration

09/16/2011

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has sent to arbitration a labor/management dispute over union representation following several lawsuits that accused employers of acting in bad faith by refusing to accept the union as employees’ bargaining representative.

FMLA leave doesn’t mean you can’t discipline

09/13/2011

The FMLA was enacted to let workers briefly put their careers on hold to tend to pressing personal matters like illness, childbirth and adoption, eldercare and other covered events. It was not designed to enable them to avoid discipline. That’s why the law specifically states that employers don’t have to give returning employees benefits they would not have received if they hadn’t taken FMLA leave.

NLRB: You must display new pro-union poster by Nov. 14

09/02/2011

The National Labor Relations Board announced in August that most private employers will soon have to display a new poster in their workplaces notifying employees of their right to form or join a union. The poster—it’s not yet available, but soon will be on the U.S. Department of Labor’s website—must go up by Nov. 14.

Business balks at NLRB ‘quickie election’ proposal

08/29/2011

In a public hearing this summer, business groups weren’t shy in blasting a proposal by the National Labor Relations Board that would expedite the process by which employees vote on forming a union. Brian Hayes, the only Republican member of the NLRB, called the push for such “quickie” or “ambush” elections a “radical manipulation of our election process.”