National Labor Relations Research Articles

미국 노동분쟁의 ADR 절차와 시사점

In South Korea, specific work procedures have not been established to activate the alternative dispute resolution before and after labor disputes in the relief procedure. In particular, there is no special law that can uniformly and consistently apply the alternative solutions to labor disputes, and the subjects, procedures, and contents of the application are scattered in the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act or the Labor Relations Commission Act. Nevertheless, the Labor Relations Commission actively participates from the collective bargaining stage, or the local labor commission leads the cooperation from the local governments to deploy the experts of alternative dispute resolution from the community. Therefore, in order for South Korea to actively introduce and revitalize the methods of alternative dispute resolution in labor cases, it is firstly necessary to establish the legal bases, procedures, and contents for the alternative dispute resolution.
 Therefore, this paper aims to derive implications after examining the ADR procedure in the case of unfair labor practices and employment discrimination in the United States. Firstly, the ADR procedure in the United States provides the legal basis in accordance with the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act of 1996, a federal law. Specifically, the ADR procedures and contents of unfair labor practices and employment discrimination cases can be found through the Federal Code of Regulations. Secondly, the agency conducts the ADR procedures according to the work in charge of each agency. In other words, it means that the division of labor by agency is possible depending on the task in charge. Thirdly, the timing of the commencement for the ADR procedure is possible even before applications for unfair labor practices and employment discrimination relief are received. In other words, the ADR procedure may proceed at any stage before and after the issuing for relief. Fourthly, the ADR procedures are based on spontaneity, neutrality, confidentiality, and enforceability. Therefore, either party may withdraw the ADR at any time, and is left at the sole discretion of the party, without incurring any charges or expenses. Fifthly, the National Labor Relations Board has signed the agreement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to provide mediators, while the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission uses not only internal mediators but also external contract mediators. Sixthly, the Employment Equality Opportunity Commission enters into the universal mediation agreement with employers. In other words, the Employment Equality Opportunity Commission encourages employers to enter into the universal mediation agreement to utilize the mediation at the regional, local, or national level. Seventhly, the National Labor Relations Board's ADR reconciliation and withdrawal rate and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's adjustment resolution rate exceed 70%, so its effectiveness is excellent.

Court Injunctions Plague Union‐Free Efforts

The recent case of National Labor Relations Board v. HSA Cleaning, Inc., Civil Action No. 23‐2994 (D.N.J. July 6, 2023), demonstrates how legal compliance during union campaigns is an inexact science. In HSA, it was alleged that in March 2022, the cleaning contractor's employee, Luis Varela, spoke as a representative of coworkers to voice management concerns about, among other things, mistreatment by management and threats of termination. A few months later, union representatives met with Varela and others in an organizing effort. Thereafter, Varela became more involved in organizing activities, including discussion about circulating a petition to gather employee support for union representation.

Prepare for potential impact of NLRB case alleging student‐athletes must be classified as employees

Although the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel has long made it clear that she believes student‐athletes at colleges and universities should qualify as employees under the NLRA, a recent complaint has become the first case that will test that position before the NLRB and federal courts.

Non‐Competition Agreements: An Invitation for the Union Organizer

One of the hot topics in labor and employment in 2023 has been that of non‐compete agreements. Over the past several years, many states have taken steps to limit their enforceability or, in the case of California, outright ban them. Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission announced efforts to curb the use of non‐compete agreements. Not to be outdone, the NLRB's General Counsel also entered the fray and recently issued a memo finding that certain non‐compete agreements violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

NLRB Continues Battle to Allow Organizing of Gig Workers

When it comes to union organizing, one of the first questions that need to be answered is, “Who is being organized?” Frequently, that question involves names and job titles. However, the answer goes deeper than those types of facts. A specific legal question also arises: “Is it employees that are being organized?” Supervisors, for example, cannot be organized for union representation purposes. As relevant to the past five years or so, independent contractors also cannot be organized because they are not “employees,” which is the only category of worker organizable under the National Labor Relations Act. Not surprisingly, given the growth of the gig economy, the definitions of “employee” and “independent contractor” take on great significance when it comes to union organizing. A persuasive argument that a worker is an independent contractor, and not an employee, will make short work of an election petition.

Labor complaint could impact your school

Although the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel has long made it clear that she believes student‐athletes at colleges and universities should qualify as employees under the NLRA, a recent complaint has become the first case that will test that position before the NLRB and federal courts. On May 18, 2023, Region 31 of the NLRB issued an unfair labor practice complaint against the University of Southern California, the Pac‐12 Conference, and the NCAA. The complaint alleges that USC, the Pac‐12, and the NCAA are joint employers and have misclassified football and basketball players at USC as “non‐employees” in order to deprive them of their rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act.

Do bureaucratic appointees change their minds? Preference stability at the NLRB

ObjectivesQuestions of attitude stability for appointed decisionmakers are vital to our understanding of democracy. I test the assumption of bureaucratic preference stability that is widespread in formal and empirical analyses of the U.S. executive branch.MethodsThe study presents a qualitative analysis of quantitative voting data for members of the National Labor Relations Board from 1948 to 1988ResultsAnalysis reveals a few clear cases of permanent and important preference change and some evidence of change at the very beginning or very end of a few board members' careers. But overall there is remarkable stability in the relative levels of support for labor exhibited by board members as their careers unfold.ConclusionsWith some notable exceptions, an independent regulatory board member's revealed preferences tend to remain stable and consistent with the expectations that any observer would have had at the time of their initial appointment.

Joint Employer Update

In a recent union election, an affiliate of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) unanimously won the right to represent certain technology employees of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. The names of the parties may not immediately resonate, but the CWA affiliate is Alphabet Workers Union. In turn, Cognizant Technology Solutions is a staffing agency for Alphabet Inc., which is the parent company for Google, and which was ruled by a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Regional Director to be a joint employer with Cognizant. The union win is a step forward to a new joint employer standard that holds putative joint employers liable for bargaining obligations and unfair labor practices.

NLRB Expanding Efforts to Promote Unionization?

Management Report for Nonunion OrganizationsVolume 46, Issue 6 p. 2-8 News NLRB Expanding Efforts to Promote Unionization? First published: 10 May 2023 https://doi.org/10.1002/mare.30966Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Abstract The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently announced a “Know Your Rights” card series, to be published in both English and Spanish, to advise workers of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). According to NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, “This card series is one of many steps we're taking to ensure that all workers know their workplace rights and understand that there is a federal agency, the NLRB, that they may seek help from if they feel that their rights have been violated. The cards will advance the NLRB's efforts to remove barriers for workers in underserved communities through education, outreach, and process so that all workers can safely access the NLRB.” Volume46, Issue6June 2023Pages 2-8 RelatedInformation

Migration and Mortality: Social Death, Dispossession, and Survival in the Americas

Migration and Mortality is an edited collection on immigration, health, and the legacy of colonialism. The book is edited by Jamie Longazel, a political scientist who focuses on immigration law, and Miranda Cady Hallett, an anthropologist who researches migration. The two have assembled an interdisciplinary collection divided into four sections. Each section focuses on what the editors call the United States’ “parasitism,” examining the contemporary health consequences of migrant exploitation through the lens of the United States’ history as a “crucible of settler colonialism” (p. 2).The first section, “Haunted Humanitarianism,” examines how mainstream humanitarian discourses reproduce the Global North's “violent parasitism” (p. 13). Joseph Nevins explores how human rights organizations fail to challenge the root causes of violence against migrants: borders and migration restrictions. Nevins argues the limited ambitions of most human rights organizations fail to protect immigrants. Alicia Ivonne Estrada continues the section's focus on the inadequacy of Western institutions’ humanitarianism. Her chapter looks at the US media's failure to contextualize the life and death of Maya-K'iche’ migrant Hugo Alfredo Tale Yax within the frame of genocide. The final chapter in the first section, co-written by Marianne Madoré and Nicholas Rodrigo, examines the 2019 border security expo in San Antonio. They note the contradiction of the US Department of Homeland Security's rhetorical emphasis on humanitarianism at a tactical weaponry exposition. The three chapters in this section focus on the hypocrisy of Western institutions’ professed commitment to “humanitarianism.”The second section, on “Death and Dispossession,” examines US parasitism “on full display” (p. 14). Nicholas de Genova looks at mass death at the US–Mexico border. De Genova argues that rising mortality is the result of border militarization and US law. He concludes that these measures’ effect is to catch “illegalized” migrants inside the United States. as rich countries actively redraw “the global color line” (p. 87). In the next chapter, Deirdre Conlon and Nancy Hiemstra examine US migrant “detention economies.” In a detention economy, migrant well-being is sacrificed so local governments can raise “critical revenues” through confinement (pp. 113–16). Nathan Music and Linda McCauley, in the section's last chapter, examine the consequences of excess heat on H2-A migrant farmworkers, whose lack of protections echoes the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, the Bracero Program, and the “dark history” of slavery. This section assesses the ways US capital takes precedent over migrants’ health.The third section focuses on the “haunting presence of death” that lingers over migrants. The section begins with Daniel Stageman and Shirley Leyro's examination of mental health issues that manifest in undocumented migrants and detained immigrant children, including anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. The health impact of strict immigration enforcement is then the focus of Juan Pedroza and Pil Chung's chapter. They examine the Hispanic Epidemiological Paradox and the health impacts of deportation, concluding the “price of settling in the USA seems to have risen” (pp. 165–66). In the third section's final chapter, Noah Kline focuses on the effects of Georgia ending emergency Medicaid access for unauthorized migrants. Kline argues that Georgia's denial of emergency Medicaid is part of “bureaucratically orchestrated death” (p. 187). This set of chapters showcases valuable approaches for understanding the health impact of anti-immigrant policies.The fourth section—“Outsourced Suffering and Survival in the Americas”—focuses on the international impacts of the United States’ exclusionary policies. Jared Van Ramshorst examines “metering,” an initiative to limit the daily number of asylum seekers who enter the United States. Metering pushes refugees into Mexico, thus allowing the United States to “manage violence” by keeping asylees outside its territory (pp. 213–18). Amelia Frank-Vitale then examines deportees in Honduras, who are caught between the dangers of migration and of violence at home. Frank-Vitale argues these young Honduran men are “systematically devalued” and that migration is their only hope to reclaim “a meaningful life” (p. 232). In the next chapter, Karina Alma explores Nicaragua's sweet-lobster industry, focusing on one Afro-Indigenous community that faces “troubling” rates of workplace mortality. These workers, whose lobsters are sold to US consumers, are thus still vulnerable to the US “apparatus of power,” even though they never left Central America (p. 239). Finally, Abby Wheatley examines migrant agency in her chapter, “A Politics of Survival.” Wheatley draws on narratives to show how immigrants assert their “right to life, livelihood, and autonomy.” This section demonstrates how the United States externalizes the cost of its exclusionary policies.The epilogue, by Anna Babel, Hallett, and Longazel, ties the books’ main themes to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the rest of the collection, the epilogue connects individual stories to broader themes in history, theory, and politics. The editors and contributors of this book make a strong case for a multidisciplinary approach to assess the health impacts of migration.

Captive Audience Meetings One Step Closer to Unlawful Conduct

Few people would argue that the current NLRB General Counsel is undertaking several initiatives designed to increase the power of unions and union organizers. Among the most controversial, and likely to see court challenges, is the effort to make captive audience meetings unlawful. At its core, the General Counsel is seeking to negate the ability of employers to, on paid time, require employees to attend meetings that address unionization. The effort seems directly contrary to Section 8I of the National Labor Relations Act, which states, “The expressing of any views, argument, or opinion, or the dissemination thereof, whether in written, printed, graphic, or visual form, shall not constitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice under any of the provisions of this Act [subchapter], if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit.” While captive audience meetings have been historically limited within 24 hours of the start of an election under the “Peerless Plywood” rule, they have never been prohibited as a general practice.

Federal Court Changes NLRB Election Rules

In implementing any strategy, it is vital to know the rules. This is true in a variety of contexts, including union organizing. An employer must understand the rules in play between the time a petition is filed and an election is held. A recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations v. National Labor Relations Board, Docket No. 20‐5223 (January 17, 2023), changed the rules again.

Improving the system of wage regulation in Kazakhstan

The article analyzes the current practice of wage regulation in Kazakhstan. The purpose of the article is based on the results of a comprehensive analysis of official statistics for 2001-2021 and the current system of wage regulation, to identify the existing problems and possible solutions. To conduct a comparative analysis, statistical data from OECD Data and OECD Statistics were used, which mainly reflect the dynamics of Germany's indicators in the field of wage regulation. The wage regulation mechanism in a market economy is considered as a system consisting of three closely interconnected parts (blocks): - formation of an equilibrium wage rate in the labor market; - use of the system of social partnership; - implementation of measures of state influence. The analysis revealed that in Kazakhstan, supply and demand in the labor market do not have an adequate impact on the formation of the market wage rate, due to the low level of maturity of social and labor relations, the interests of employers dominate over the interests of employees, the effectiveness of collective agreements in regulating wages is very low . The role of the state in achieving a specific relationship between social justice and economic efficiency is not fully   manifested. The agreed position of social partners on a reasonable increase in the share of wages in GDP should be achieved in the course of concluding a General Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, republican associations of employers and republican associations of trade unions. Based on the experience of the United States, it is advisable to create a National Labor Relations Administration, which will also deal with the certification of trade unions. Increasing the wages of workers should become a priority goal of socio-economic policy.

Effectiveness of Conciliation Mediation in Regional Arbitration Branch – National Capital Region

This study aimed to determine the Effectiveness of Conciliation Mediation in Regional Arbitration Branch – National Capital Region. It employed the descriptive-quantitative method of research using the researchers-made instrument to gather data from the 60 employees of the National Labor Relations Commission. They served as respondents to the study. The researcher personally distributed the tool using the random sampling technique because the researchers distributed the questionnaire to every member of the population and gave them an equal chance of being selected. It was discovered that most respondents were in the age range of 51-60 years old and above, female, married, and 26 years and above in the government service. When the effectiveness of the conciliation medication was tested, the result yielded that the Conciliation Mediation Process, Duration of the Process, Conciliator Mediator Skills, and Termination of the Conciliation Mediation Process in terms of efficacy, efficiency, and reliability were highly effective. Taking into account the result of the study, it was recommended that regular training for conciliators mediators should be conducted so that their skills in settling preliminary labor disputes may be enhanced and which will result in more future settlements between the parties involved. It is also recommended that the conciliator mediators increase their commitment to accommodate all requests and possible assistance to our laborers. It is likewise prudent to train new and incoming conciliator mediators so that as early as now, they will be given a chance to experience and explore handling conciliation mediation.

Errors and Omissions: Applying Lessons from History to Decide the Future of Administrative Deference with Respect to the National Labor Relations Board

Errors and Omissions: Applying Lessons from History to Decide the Future of Administrative Deference with Respect to the National Labor Relations Board

The National Labor Relations Act, the Major Questions Doctrine, and Labor Peace in the Modern Workplace

The National Labor Relations Act, the Major Questions Doctrine, and Labor Peace in the Modern Workplace

Web-based Management Information System of Cases Filed with National Labor Relations Commission

This study was developed to describe the daily operations and encountered problems of the National Labor Relations Commission Regional Arbitration Branch No. IV (NLRC RAB IV) through conducted observations and interviews. These problems were addressed and analyzed to be the features of the developed web-based management information system (MIS) for cases. The research methodology utilized in this project was the descriptive developmental approach. The Agile Software Development methodology was followed to develop the system. It was used to quickly produce the desired output while allowing the user to go back through phases without finishing the whole cycle. The system covered managing filed complaints, Single-Entry Approach (SEnA), labor cases, and report generation. The findings, through the interview, of handling records were inconsistent and inaccurate. This study also focused on ensuring the Data Privacy Act of 2012, protecting the database's information using the XOR Cipher Algorithm. This study was evaluated using standard web evaluation criteria. Using the criteria, the study's overall mean was 4.27 and 4.43, with the descriptive meaning of Very Good, which showed that the system was accepted as perceived by experts and end-users, respectively. Management of filed cases is a vital process for the Commission. With that said, developing a web-based management information system could ease the internal operations of handling and managing filed labor cases. Moreover, respondents and complainants can easily determine their filed cases' status using the case status tracking system. For further improvements to the system, additional printable documents may be added that could be found needed by the Commission. Lastly, further research about the effectiveness of the web-based system may be conducted for further enhancements of the system.

On the Tenuous Track: Unionization Efforts among Contingent Faculty at Private Colleges and Universities

This study examines unionization efforts among contingent faculty members, who now account for the majority of the academic workforce. Drawing on data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and other sources, this article uses an event history analysis to identify factors associated with efforts to establish a contingent faculty union at private, 4-year institutions. Even after accounting for other state and institution characteristics, this study finds increased odds of contingent faculty unionization at institutions located in states where the legislature is more liberal and where more contingent faculty union certification elections have been held previously.

Problems and Concerns at the Sheriff’s Office of the National Labor Rela-tions Commission – National Capital Region Arbitration Branch (Nlrc-Ncrab) with the Writ of Execution

This study aims to address the encountered problems and concerns of the National Labor Relations Commission – National Capital Region Arbitration Branch (NLRC-NCRAB) Sheriffs in implementing the writ of execution. A quantitative and descriptive research approach was used, with a survey questionnaire as the research instrument tool. 29 active sheriffs in the NLRC-NCRAB were the respondents of this study. Findings show that most of the incumbent sheriffs at the NLRC- NCRAB are 51-65 years old, have been in the service for at least 6-10 years, and are college graduates. A substantial number received more or less 11-20 writs of execution in a month; a more significant number satisfied an average of 1-10 writs. It was concluded that among the problems and concerns at the Sheriff’s Office regarding the issuance of the writ is the “non-issuance of the break-open, contempt order, and show-cause order” being the top compared to other raised issues encountered by them (M=3.93). It also reveals that parties' compliance relative to the writ, a predominant calculated mean of 3.86, points to the “no coordination by the prevailing parties with the sheriff assigned to the case” and is considered similarly “serious.” Correlatively, the results reveal that in terms of writ implementation, the “non-provision of bonded warehouse and towing vehicles” exhibited the most rated among the enumerated issues and was interpreted “very serious” problem being encountered by the NLRC-NCRAB Sheriffs with a determined mean average of 4.28.

Discrimination by Another Name Is Still Unlawful

Most employers know that they cannot lawfully fire union supporters. To do so is a clear unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act. Well‐versed labor practitioners know, however, that while union advocates cannot suffer from adverse actions due to their sympathies, they also do not enjoy special treatment. Employers can lawfully terminate pro‐union employees so long as the fact that the employee favors a union does not play a role in the decision.