Trump’s NLRB Just Quietly Ruled to Make Union Pickets Illegal
An all-Republican panel of President Trump’s National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) recently ruled that janitors in San Francisco violated the law when they picketed in front of their workplace to win higher wages, better working conditions and freedom from sexual harassment in their workplace. The ruling could result in far-reaching restrictions on picketing that limit the ability of labor unions to put public pressure on management.
The NLRB reached its conclusion by using the complex and convoluted employment structure created by the janitors’ employers. The janitors were technically employed by one company, Ortiz Janitorial Services, which was subcontracted by another company, Preferred Building Services, to work in the building of a third company.
This type of confusing employment relationship is increasingly common, resulting in workers being put in a position where it’s difficult to negotiate higher wages and better working conditions, or protect their basic employment rights.
The NLRB based its decision on a particularly onerous provision in federal labor law that prohibits employees from engaging in boycotts, pickets or other activities that are aimed at a secondary employer. The provision was added as part of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, taking away one of labor’s most powerful weapons.
In this case, the NLRB overturned an administrative law judge’s ruling that because the second company had significant control over the employment relationship, it constituted a joint employer. The judge based her conclusion on evidence that Preferred Building Services was involved in the hiring, firing, disciplining, supervision, direction of work, and other terms and conditions of the janitors’ employment with Ortiz Janitorial Services. Therefore, both Ortiz and Preferred acted as joint employers to the janitors.
The article is about a month and a half old but I haven't seen anything posted about it. And heads up that the news site is also explicitly biased as a pro labor news org.
With so much focus on free speech issues in the last few years, there's been uncanny silence on the free speech attacks against labor, and I think it's important to note that while this article sets up the framing with the Trump administration, that labors protected speech has been continuously weakened by presidential administrations for decades. This also comes right off the heels of the massive Janus supreme court decision from this summer.
After this ruling the ability for any subcontracted employee to have meaningful representation has been completely crushed. With the precedence this sets, it's likely that even more employers will organize their worker structure in this manner to loophole their way around any union challenging them. Of note, it looks like it would be legal for someone not employed by a company to openly display a sign criticizing them, but as soon as you're an employee that action becomes illegal.
Zero Republicans and 2% of Democrats care about organized labor. Organized labor is the weakest it's been since the Gilded Age by design.
People have been convinced that unions are either an outdated concept or completely corrupt institutions that only benefit union leaders.
They aren't an outdated concept by a long shot, but yes, their current implementation is corrupt and not only benefits just the union leaders, but only cares about the ass kissers and treats everyone else like they are disposable. Unions as a concept are great ideas. But they have moved away from what they used to be.
The problem with modern unions is that they're apparently not controlled by the workers, so it's not really a worker's union. In some cases the union is even run by the industry, which just makes it corrupt and useless. Conservatives latch onto these problems as evidence that unions are useless, and you can't suggest worker-lead unions because then you're getting close to socialism and that's automatically invalid.
The janitors were technically employed by one company, Ortiz Janitorial Services, which was subcontracted by another company, Preferred Building Services, to work in the building of a third company.
This type of confusing employment relationship is increasingly common, resulting in workers being put in a position where it’s difficult to negotiate higher wages and better working conditions, or protect their basic employment rights.
This should be illegal.
Nice no true scotsman there. But believe it or not, we do have these real worker lead unions that you speak of, and yes, they are just as shitty.
well there it goes, everybody can avoid all the issues of labor just by hiring a guy to hire a guy and there's no limit
I hear a lot about supposed union corruption abroad in other countries, does anyone have any fairly recent articles, docos, etc. about union corruption within the U.S.? I'm not to well veased about organised labour in other countries.
Is that so? Then do you have an explanation for why unions elsewhere in the world actually serve their purpose?
Maybe that has less to do with the nature of unions as a whole, and more to do with factors specifics to the US. Just saying.
Good thing I was talking about unions in the US and not elsewhere in the world, or the nature of unions as a whole.
It can't be, really. A great deal of secondary industries operate like this, especially maintenance and construction. Frequently small/medium companies don't have the staffed manpower to fulfill a contract, so they subcontract to other even smaller outfits to pick up the slack. Almost every construction site in North America works like this.
The primary issue here is that subcontractors can't picket, they should be allowed to; although they may get fired by their own company. It would help if they belonged to a unionized contractor to start with so that this would be dealt with at a higher negotiating level.
In general, legal action here is just not required because the right to picket here would be dealt with in the contractor/subcontractor/client relationship. Either their own company needs to negotiate, or the client needs to back-charge or sue for breach of contract. This is just the long arm of Trump and Cronies trying to proactively bust unions before they even start.
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