Supreme Court Gives Big Labor a Big Black Eye
Today the US Supreme Court found that the two member National Labor Relations Board did NOT have decision making authority over matters brought before them under the National Labor Relations Act. The decision handed down in the matter of NEW PROCESS STEEL, L.P., PETITIONER v.NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD gave Big Labor it’s biggest set back since Reagan was in the White House.
Because of partisan bickering that has been going on since the Clinton administration, the five person National Labor Relations Board has struggled to maintain three permanent members and hasn’t even come close to having the full five member board as designed by the National Labor Relations Act. Since the Obama administration has been in power, the NLRB has only had two members for the majority of the time. During the first year of the new administration, over 600 decisions were handed down that reversed many NLRB rulings and administrative directives that were put in place during the Bush years. As you might expect, these decisions were pro labor and anti business by a wide margin.
Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court seemed to nullify those decisions. These cases will now have to be reviewed once again, once three or more members are on the board. This increases an already growing case back log by a significant amount. The end result will probably be much like the world of labor was during the Bush administration. This decision will also empower the conservative, pro-business elements because they will now have to have a seat at the table if the Democrats and pro-labor folks ever want a decision to be made by the NLRB again.
Score one for business.
Introducing Greve Consulting – Same Guy, Different Name
Today I am launching my new web site under the new company name of Greve Consulting, formerly known as Metreks. The focus of my practice is to help companies develop their returns management, aka reverse logistics capabilities. Viewers will find a lot of useful information on returns including the Reverse Logistics Podcast, which will feature industry leaders from the world of reverse logistics, and my blog which is packed with articles and information to help service providers, manufacturers, retailers, and liquidators make more money.
Register to get the blogs sent to your desktop automatically or save www.GreveConsulting.com as a favorite on your browser. Your comments, questions, suggestions and feedback are encouraged. I will use your feedback to improve the value delivered from the site.
Check in from time to time to see what is new. For example, you might want to check out The Cost of Doing Nothing. This is a form you can fill out to find out how much opportunity you and your company have in developing your reverse logistics capabilities.
Whether you call it returns management or reverse logistics, it’s all about improving returns and maximizing profits. I hope you enjoy the new site and get a lot of value out of GreveConsulting.com.
Free Download – How to Keep Warehouses Union Free
Click on the image or the link be
low to download the March 2010 issue of Warehousing Forum, published by The Ackerman Company. Warehousing Forum is a leading supply chain newsletter that is recognized around the world as a great resource for supply chain executives. This award winning publication is dedicated to helping warehouse managers and their bosses improve productivity and manage more profitably with tips, comments and articles written by practicing professionals. If you are in supply chain management at any level, you will want to subscribe to this publication.
The featured article in the March 2010 issue discusses critical components to keeping warehouses and distribution facilities union free, and was written by Curtis Greve. Enjoy your free download of this thought leading publication.
Brown Wins Senate Seat, EFCA Loses Key Vote
With REPUBLICAN Scott Brown winning the Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy, will the person filling the seat kill EFCA, the pro-labor bill authored by his predecessor? Business people across America hope so. One thing is for sure; Senator Brown killed the filibuster-proof Democratic majority. How ironic!
Senator Brown’s election will have a huge impact on Washington and raises a lot of questions. Is this the final nail in Big Labor’s coffin? Is EFCA dead, this time for good? Is health care dead? Does this mean that Obama will have to learn to deal with Republicans this year and grid lock next year? The Democrats had a “full house”. They seem to have blown the opportunity they had. Obama and the Democrats seemed unstoppable but it is clear the tide is turning.
EFCA is not dead. There are a number regulations the Democrats could pass, without going to the floor, to pay labor back for their work in the campaign and with health care. These regulations would provide most of the benefits that labor is looking for. That is probably the safest route for the Democrats to take. It would pay their debt to Big Labor and it would keep them out of the headlines as supporting labor’s big payoff. The head of the AFL-CIO threatened the Democrats last week that they had better deliver in the first quarter if they want any help in November.
Today’s results clearly proves, they gonna need it!
How To Avoid Hiring a Union Plant
If your business is a target of a union, you could be hiring “union plants” or “seeds” and not even be aware of it. Many business owners are shocked when they find out that it is perfectly legal for a person who is on a union’s payroll to apply for and get hired by a target company, for the sole purpose of organizing that company’s employees. The fact is that it happens every day.
If you are a business owner, how can you avoid hiring a union plant?
The first thing you should look at is your application. Make sure that you have room for and require information, including wage rate, position, etc. for up to five previous employers. At the bottom of the application you should have appropriate language that states the applicant can be fired if they lie on the application. A good example of this would be:
Information to the applicant: References may be checked. If you have misrepresented or omitted any facts on this application, and are subsequently hired, you may be discharged from your job. You may make a written request for information derived from the checking of your references. If necessary for employment, you may be required to: supply your birth certificate or other proof of authorization to work in the US, have a physical examination and/or a drug test, or to sign a conflict of interest agreement and abide by its terms.
I understand and agree to the information shown above:
Signature:_________________________ Date:_________________
Once you have the completed application, you should do a background check to verify that the person was employed as stated on their application. As you go through the applications, after the background checks are completed, watch outfor people who have significant gaps in employment, have worked for companies that had organized workers, and people who’s wages were 15% or higher than the job for which they are applying.
If you hire temporary workers, make sure that you have a good discussion with the temp agency. The temp agency should use similar screening processes as well. Many companies us temps as a way to “screen” applicants for long term employment. If a temp is a “plant”, they won’t wait for full time status to get going on their real job of organizing and union card signing.
Even if you are the target of a union, there are things you are not allowed to ask an applicant, some of topics include:
- Age
- Sexual orientation
- Religious affiliation
- Race or nationality
You should have a working knowledge of the following federal laws:
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which covers the subject of discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, religion, sex or creed
- The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
- The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
- The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993
Hiring is a critical part of every organization. Getting a union organizer hired is one of the most effective union tactic to literally get their foot in the door. You have to have good, prudent, hiring practices to ensure you don’t fan the flames of an aggressive union within your workforce.
AFL-CIO President Predicts EFCA Passage by Q1 2010
The AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, warned wavering Democrats to come through on the labor agenda—from EFCA to health care reform and a jobs bill. In addition to warning Democrats, he predicted EFCA passage by the end of the first quarter, in a speech he gave in Washington today.
Unions invested millions of dollars and thousands of hours of volunteer efforts to help the party increase its House and Senate margins and take the White House in 2008.
“One year into the Obama administration and one year into a Congress with strong Democratic majorities, we need leadership action that matches the urgency that is felt so deeply by working people,” Trumka said. “We will not vote for politicians who think they can push a few crumbs our way and then continue the failed economic policies of the last 30 years.”
“I think you’ll see the Employee Free Choice Act pass in the first quarter of 2010,” said Trumka at the National Press Club in Washington.
Trumka went on to say “The systematic silencing of American workers by denying our right to form unions is at the heart of the disappearance of good jobs in America,”
“We must pass the Employee Free Choice Act so that workers can have the chance to turn bad jobs into good jobs, and so we can reduce the inequality which is undermining our prospects for stable economic growth.”
A top legislative priority for unions, the bill has been stalled since its March introduction. The health care debate has sidelined EFCA and the unions have been supporting the Democratic position but want payback and soon.
Over the summer, EFCA negotiations centered on replacing the so-called card-check provision with one that would significantly speed up union elections, according to many sources. Campaigns could start as early as seven to 21 days after election petitions have been filed instead of the usual six weeks or longer.
It’s unclear whether a compromise exists that has the support of the entire 60-member Senate Democratic caucus, which is exactly large enough to squelch GOP delaying tactics like those that killed the bill in 2007.
Trumka’s comments seem to indicate that the Senate will turn to EFCA after it approves a final health care reform bill. Trumka is confident that unions can overcome Republican roadblocks.
“We’re going to have the Employee Free Choice Act despite the determined efforts of the Republican Party and a group of businesspeople who really don’t want any kind of labor law reform at all,” he said.
Answer Questions Timely and Avoid Unions
Every day, when an employee goes to work, they are asked to do a lot of things. They have their normal job but are often asked to help out someplace else in the operations or do some extraordinary task, like help with inventory or go to a safety meeting. When supervisors ask employees to follow through on their requests, supervisors expect a timely positive response followed up by action.
Employees expect the same thing. When one of your employees asks you a question, they expect a timely response. Workers are smart enough to know that they may not always get what the want but they do expect an answer.
One of the biggest mistakes a manager can make is to ignore or forget to get back with an employee on a question they have asked. When this happens the employee will feel like you don’t care and they aren’t really very important to the operation.
If this happens too many times, you can be sure that the employee will find somebody who will get them answers and who treats them like they are important. Unfortunately, it will either be another company, after you’ve trained them, or a union organizer who will make them feel very important.
If an employee asks you a question, tell them the answer to their question, if you know it. If you don’t, write down the employee’s name and the question they asked and then tell them when you will get back to them with an answer. The longest you should ever take to get them an answer is the next business day.
If you have to go up the ladder to get an answer, get back to the employee and give them a status update and a realistic estimated time when they can expect an answer. Then, stay on it. Your job is to champion the issue for the employee. They are depending on you.
You must establish an expectation that employee requests and questions will get answered in a timely manner.
Treat employee questions like you would treat questions from your boss or your most demanding customer. In other words, treat the employees like you would want them to treat you.
Five Leadership Rules For Great Labor Relations
As the old song says, “People are people where ever they are.” Seems the Good Lord wired the vast majority of folks with a fairly keen sense of right and wrong, along with an innate ability to tell when they’ve been lied to by others.
Your workforce is no different. Employees will figure out who to trust really fast. They know when somebody is being sincere or if they are just feeding them a line. That is why the number one rule in labor relations is “DON’T LIE”. Always tell the truth.
A big mistake many managers make, however, is to adopt the line from the Jack Nicholas, Tom Cruse movie “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” Leaders sometime think that employees can’t deal with reality or that they will make bad assumptions so they tell them something different than the truth. Big mistake.
The manager that does this doesn’t think of it as a lie or manipulative but their employees do and their perception is reality. The leader who gets tagged as somebody that can’t be trusted will struggle working with the team from that point on.
Along with telling the truth, supervisors and managers have to be sincere. They have to say what they mean and mean what they say. It is a leaders ability to convey sincerity that determines their ability to inspire and lead their team. Often young managers will “rally” the troops around working hard to hit a number for the good of the cause but their delivery is so insincere that the team walks away jaded and resentful. The response is often a skeptical workforces who ends up wasting time speculating about what is really going on, as opposed to focusing on the task at hand.
Once an employee begins to question your motives, they start losing trust in what you do and say. There are a few rules to remember to avoid losing the trust of your team:
- Treat people like you would want to be treated
- Never lie to your team
- Be sincere in all your dealings with people that you supervise
- Treat your people like adults
- Your actions will speak louder than your words so walk the talk at all times
If your leadership team lives by these five guidelines, you will have an organization that is built on trust and communicates in a healthy manner. This doesn’t mean everyone will always agree or that you will never have conflicts. You will. These tough issues, however, will be much easier to deal with if your people trust what you are saying and believe that you really do care.
Always, sincerely, tell the truth.
Union Decertification and The NLRB
Many business owners never hear of the National Labor Relations Board , until they get a letter notifying them that their employees have petitioned for a union election. So what is the NLRB? Simply put, the NLRB is an arm of the government that protects the rights of employees to either organize and join a union, remain union free, or decertify and effectively kick the union out. According to the NLRB Web Site:
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers in the private sector. The statute guarantees the right of employees to organize and to bargain collectively with their employers, and to engage in other protected concerted activity with or without a union, or to refrain from all such activity.
However, if you sit in any NLRB office for a few minutes you will quickly realize that the NLRB is NOT unbiased. In fact, they are very much PRO-UNION. As one official once told me, “We are in the business of making it easy to organize.” This bias comes as a surprise to many business people when they go to an NLRB hearing where a member of the NLRB sits as judge and jury on the issue of the day.
Employees too, can be surprised by the response of the NLRB. If employees want to organize, they will be rushed into an office and a friendly NLRB attorney will carefully walk them through the process. However, decerification is often met with cold response. They will answer your questions if you ask directly, but you have to ask. Employees must ask directly:
- What do I need to do to deceritify a union where I work?
- What forms must be completed to file for decertification?
- Will you give me a blank form and walk me through how to fill it out?
- Can I have extra copies of the form?
- What wording do I need to have on the “Decertification Petition”?
The answers the NLRB gives employees will be all they need to know to legally decertify the union. You can follow the this link to find the NLRB office nearest you. You can call or visit the office nearest you to get more information. The NLRB is there to protect employees. Everyone has a right to seek and receive their help. Quoting the NLRB web site says:
Employees have the right to form, join, support or assist unions, also known as labor organizations, who may bargain collectively with the employer on the employees’ behalf seeking to modify wages or working conditions. Employees also have the right to engage in other protected concerted activities without a union seeking to improve their wages and other working conditions.
Employees also have the right to refrain from engaging in these activities or to seek removal of a union from the workplace.
Students Targetted By Unions
Recently, big labor has started to target students to develop relationships that can be used later, after they graduate, to organize non-union employers. Unions are targeting student studying to be electricians, nurses, care aides, meat cutters and mechanics.
In an email to organizers the benefits of targeting students were outlined:
Here are a few reasons your organizing department should speak to your future members before they enter the workforce.
1. No fear of retaliation. At school, people are away from the prying eyes of employers. They can learn about the difference your union makes without worrying about job security.
2. Trust building. In a cold campaign, organizers have a short time to build trust. Approaching future members in school starts the slow process of building trust years before you might organize a workplace.
3. Incubate future leads. Collect contact information of students and give them a call after they enter the workforce.
There are two questions that come to mind. First, how will the schools react? There is a danger for schools that get a reputation of producing educated union organizers. Second, will businesses recruit from schools that are being actively and aggressively targeted by unions?
While this seems to be a new agressive tactic, I think it will be short lived and self defeating. Schools recruit students based on their ability to place them in good jobs after they graduate. Schools that get a reputation for producing union organizers will quickly face challenges getting businesses to hire their graduates.
The big question for educational institutions will be how are they going to address union organizers targeting their students.
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