Writing at Capital Research Center’s Labor Watch:
A shocking change in American labor relations is brewing at the U.S. Department of Labor, which is expected sometime soon to alter a major regulation. The change involves a new interpretation of the “advice exemption” of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. Specifically, businesses would have to disclose the names of, and fees paid to, attorneys and consultants who advise them on union-organizing activities. In turn, attorneys and consultants providing such advice would be required to disclose their client lists and the fees they receive.
If that sounds like a road map for retaliation and strong-arming, with dangers for traditional attorney-client confidentiality, well, you’re getting the idea. Furchtgott-Roth says the department has evaded regulatory review by low-balling the proposal’s billions of dollars in costs. “The change has no basis in existing law or precedent.”
Tagged as:
ethics,
labor unions,
lawyers
- Legislature won’t pass dram shop liability, lawyers ask Maryland high court to do so instead [Frederick News-Post]
- In St. Mary’s County, new visitor rules for elementary schools ban hugging or giving homemade food to any but own kid [Southern Maryland News]
- Progress: Maryland Senate votes to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana [NBC Washington]
- If it’ll take $1 million for Somerset County (pop. 26,000) to cut stormwater nitrogen runoff by 145 pounds, how’s it going to manage to cut 37,000 pounds? [AP]
- “Fracking Moratorium Falls One Vote Short of Passing Key Senate Committee” [Chestertown Spy] “Bill was more about preventing fracking than studying it.” [@ToddEberly]
- Department of Truly Dreadful Ideas: Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (D-Montgomery) continues to push bill to establish state-owned bank [Baltimore Business Journal]
- Website attacking Montgomery County’s Valerie Ervin has some union fingerprints [WaPo] Sen. Brinkley blasts union bill to make all Md. teachers pay agency fees [Maryland Reporter]
- Video interview with Hudson attorney George Ritchie on Waterkeeper v. Hudson Farm case [Center Maryland, earlier]
- Added: “Md. Senate votes to outlaw smoking in cars with young children as passengers” [WaPo just now]
Tagged as:
banks,
child protection,
dramshop statutes,
environment,
labor unions,
Maryland,
smoking bans
- Great moments in union contracts: “Many Suburban Cops Allowed To Work ‘Half Drunk’” [NBC Chicago]
- California high court imposes arbitrary damage-splitting rule on mixed-motive firings [Cheryl Miller, The Recorder]
- More tales of much-forgiven Broward County bus drivers [Sun-Sentinel, background]
- Sixth Circuit: SEIU robocalls to harass hospital CEO don’t violate TCPA [Littler]
- Judge rejects EEOC position against alcohol testing of steelworkers in safety-sensitive posts [Paul Mirengoff, PowerLine, Reuters]
- “NYFD made written test impossible to fail, but diversity recruits in Academy can’t meet physical standards either.” [Ted Frank/PoL]
- “The March Toward a Bullying Cause of Action Continues” [Michael Fox, Employer's Lawyer; TheDenverChannel.com]
- T’wasn’t easy for White House to find a new Labor Secretary to the left of Hilda Solis, but meet Tom Perez [WaPo]
Tagged as:
bullying,
California,
discrimination law,
EEOC,
fire departments,
Florida,
labor unions,
Sixth Circuit,
testing,
transit
- “Lying to Doctors for Fitness for Duty Exam Can Still Get You Fired …But Only If You’re a Police Officer” [Connecticut cop smashed into two cars during epileptic seizure; Daniel Schwartz]
- “Emotional labor”: is having to be cheerful to customers a form of capitalist slavery? [Tim Noah v. Andrew Sullivan]
- CalPERS: “The pension fund that ate California” [Steve Malanga, City Journal]
- Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), other “worker centers” on the rise: “Will ‘alt-labor’ replace unions?” [Salon; critical anti-ROC site via Matt Patterson/CEI]
- Without benefit of an act of Congress, EEOC is interpreting the law to prohibit transgender bias [Workplace Prof]
- “The Nation: Government-Mandated Lunch Breaks are Somehow Libertarians’ Fault” [Shackford, Reason]
- Historian challenges received account of Haymarket Affair [Ron Radosh]
Tagged as:
Connecticut,
disabled rights,
EEOC,
labor unions,
police,
transgender,
wage and hour suits,
workplace
- Disabled kids and their parents among chief losers in NYC school bus strike [Richard Epstein]
- “School District to Spend $2.4 MILLION on Guards? A Mom Protests” [Free-Range Kids, N.C.] “Our Schools Are Safe Enough: A Movement to Stop Overreacting to Sandy Hook” [same] Shame that NRA would decide to push big government mandate at taxpayer expense [Brian Doherty]
- LSAC challenges new California law banning flagging applicants’ extra time on LSAT [Karen Sloan, NLJ]
- One year on job, 13 years in rubber room for NYC teacher accused of sexually harassing students [NY Post]
- Missouri lawmaker introduces bill criminalizing failure to report gun ownership to child’s school [Caroline May, Daily Caller]
- Suing for edu-bucks: “Court says Kansas must increase school funding, slams tax cuts” [Reuters, Severino/NRO]
- “Yay for Recess: Pediatricians Say It’s as Important as Math or Reading” [Bonnie Rochman, Time]
Tagged as:
guns,
Kansas,
labor unions,
NYC,
schools
Broward County, Fla. transit bus driver Larry Moore “was disciplined 19 times” and “was held responsible for nine accidents with other South Florida drivers.” After a so-called last-chance warning in 2008 he “went on to be disciplined seven more times, for five preventable accidents and two clashes with customers, county personnel records show.”
The Sun Sentinel reported earlier this month that one driver, Charles Butler, who cost taxpayers $73,005 in a lawsuit settlement, was involved in 21 accidents while driving a county bus. Twelve were deemed preventable, and 10 involved him hitting another driver. He is still driving, despite having reached the firing threshold. …
[Transit director Tim] Garling said the county follows the union contract, which calls for progressive levels of discipline.
[Sun-Sentinel, newspaper's earlier coverage of Butler case here and here]
Tagged as:
Florida,
labor unions,
public employment,
transit
A. “Buried in the middle of the penultimate paragraph.”
Q. “Where, amid a long rant against the D.C. Circuit’s decision striking down most recess appointments by the President (“A Court Upholds Republican Chicanery”), would you expect the Times to concede that the practice of holding pro forma sessions to stymie such appointments was pioneered under Democratic Senate rule as a way of restraining President George W. Bush?
No prizes, as distinct from amusement value, in demonstrating what the New York Times thought of the practice back then.
More on the Canning v. NLRB decision: Trevor Burrus/Cato, massive link roundup at How Appealing, John Elwood, Point of Law roundtable, Michael Fox/Employer’s Lawyer (implications for NLRB), @markcalabria (implications for Richard Cordray CFPB appointment), Michael Greve, Mike Rappaport.
Tagged as:
Barack Obama,
labor unions,
New York Times,
Senate
- Seventh Circuit upholds Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s public sector labor law reform [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]
- In theory, California workers fired for cause aren’t entitled to unemployment compensation. In practice… [Coyote]
- Comstockery meets occupational licensure: how New York’s Cabaret Law tripped up Billie Holiday [Bryan Caplan]
- New Jersey lawmakers move to cut nonunion workers out of Hurricane Sandy recovery jobs [Jersey Journal]
- Cheer up, plaintiff’s bar, you’re doing very well these days out of FLSA wage-and-hour actions [Max Kennerly]
- Back to “spiking”: “CalPERS planning to gut a key cost-control provision of new pension law” [Daniel Borenstein, Contra Costa Times] When government negotiates with public sector unions over pay, the process should be transparent to taxpayers and the public [Nick Dranias, Goldwater Institute]
- Sacre bleu! Labor law reform reaches France [NYT]
Tagged as:
California,
France,
labor unions,
New Jersey,
public employment,
unemployment benefits,
wage and hour suits,
Wisconsin
- Judge rules in first California “suitable seating at work” trial [The Recorder; earlier here, here]
- On business travel: “Injury During Sex is Work-Related and Compensable, Aussie Court Holds” [Workplace Prof]
- On the other hand: “Running in High Heels Was Probably Enough to Defeat This Workers’ Comp Claim” [Lowering the Bar]
- Illinois federal court rules that unpaid volunteers may be covered by Title VII discrimination law [Eric Sigda, GTLE Blog]
- Seattle to pay drama teacher $750K for not accommodating wishes re: renovation of building [Seattle Times, meanwhile]
- Recalling AP v. NLRB, 1937, in which SCOTUS rejected First Amendment defense to Wagner Act, over Sutherland dissent [Gerard Magliocca, ConcurOp]
- House Oversight Committee blasts NLRB for pro-union bias [press release and staff report PDF, Goldberg Segalla]
Tagged as:
Australia,
labor unions,
Seattle,
volunteers,
workers' compensation
My colleague David Boaz surveys the views of libertarians who criticize right to work laws as a (further) incursion on free contract (Sheldon Richman, Gary Chartier) and those who by contrast emphasize its possible advantages as a second-best solution amid a national labor law regime decidedly unfriendly toward liberty of contract (David Henderson, Shikha Dalmia). To which might be added the views of Steve Chapman, who finds the issue’s importance overrated, Robert VerBruggen vs. J.D. Tuccille; Iain Murray (second best); and critic Milton Friedman.
Meanwhile, Stephen Bainbridge recommends a history of the right to work movement by George Leef, Daniel Fisher notes that unions have been quite successful in some states like Nevada that do have right to work (on which more). And Mickey Kaus notes, regarding the wider debate: “Instrumental political arguments have become the major defense of Wagner Act unionism.”
Tagged as:
labor unions
