A Labor official appointed by President Joe Biden has targeted mandatory meetings against the labor union and said he would try to ban them.
Jennifer Abruzzo, Councilor of the National Council for Employment Relations, released a Note on Thursday reflecting on why she thinks such meetings are illegal. He said he would pursue the case before the entire NLRB, hoping they would be banned.
These meetings usually involve an external manager or consultant presenting issues against the union to workers considering the union. Unions call them “public captive” meetings because participation is often necessary or implicit. Meetings have been blocked by working groups for decades because they generally do not have a similar and guaranteed platform in the workplace to claim union membership.
Abruzzo’s move to ban them, of course, would worry employer groups that could oppose any such ban in court. The Attorney General indicated in his dismissal last year that he would try to ban these meetings on the grounds that they are mandatory, part of a larger program aimed at strengthening labor law for workers rather than employer.
“They are the primary weapon employers use to spread disinformation, to intimidate workers and interfere with their choices, whether they want to represent a union or not.”
– Stuart Appelbaum, President, RWDSU
In its memorandum, Abruzzo said it asks the municipality to ban them in two situations: when workers are “forced to meet for paid hours” or when “duty enforcement management rebels” listen to rhetoric against in the union. . It appears that the latter scenario involves not only group meetings, but also separate negotiations between managers and employees.
“In both cases, the employee is a public prisoner deprived of the legal right to detention and in return is forced to hear threats of discipline, dismissal or other threats of retaliation – a threat that employees reasonably see even if it is not explicitly stated. “- wrote Abruzzo.
To make such a change, the Attorney General will find a good case and then try to present it to the five members of the Labor Council, which serves on the Supreme Court of Labor Law. The council currently has a 3-2 Democratic majority, due to Senate-approved nominations made by Biden.
Abruzzo said in its memorandum that it plans to present brief information to the council in the near future on a particular case.
An integral part of management campaigns Over the years, captive audience gatherings have recently gained national attention, thanks to the high-profile unions of Amazon and Starbucks.
The tech giant held campaign meetings at both its Staten Island warehouse known as JFK8 and its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama known as BHM1. The Amazon Labor Union won only one historic election in the first, while the election in the second remains very tight with the participation of the Union of Resellers, Wholesalers and Department Stores.
Both unions have filed so -called “unfair labor practices” allegations against Amazon in the Labor Council, arguing that the meetings should be banned.
RWDSU praised Abruzzo’s MoU in a statement released Thursday.
“They are the primary weapon employers use to spread disinformation, intimidate workers and interfere with their choices, whether they want to represent the union or not,” said Stuart Appelbaum, union president. “The question of whether workers want to join should be the choice of workers – and not employers – without intimidation or interference.
The Labor Council held meetings with the captive public to make it legal, but Abruzzo said the question was wrong. He called it a “license of coercion”, which he called a “labor law anomaly.” He said the tolerance at council meetings was “contrary to the basic principles of labor law, our regulatory language and the mandate of our Congress” to protect workers ’rights.
In most cases, unions do not have access to communicate with workers at work, often doing business outside the facility or through home visits. The unions try to prepare workers for captive audience meetings through a process known as “inoculation” where they try to refute management’s claims in advance.
Last year alone, Amazon spent $ 4.3 million on anti-union consultants. Company consultants conducted group meetings and personal talks with workers to give them a voice in unions in New York and Alabama. Consultants earn $ 3,200 a day. Amazon did not comment on the costs.
A Staten Island Amazon employee told HuffPost earlier in the week how he and his staff are looking to make group meetings opportunities to organize rather than take on responsibilities as usual. The union eventually won elections from 2654 to 2131.
“When we had a match organizer, the goal was to close it completely,” Conor Spence said. “When they made inaccurate statements, we interrupted them and asked so many questions that they had no other way to end the meeting. Over time, even the sweetest people in favor of solitude have gossiped.
Source: Huffpost
