News & Commentary November 14, a last attempt to fortify worker rights before the Biden administration passes the torch

[Omaha Steve]

https://onlabor.org/november-14-2024/

By Divya Nimmagadda

Divya Nimmagadda is a student at Harvard Law School.

In what some are characterizing as part of a last attempt to fortify worker rights before the Biden administration passes the torch, The NLRB, in a 3-1 decision, released a ruling on Wednesday banning anti-union captive audience meetings – meetings where the employer expresses its views on unionization under threat of discipline or discharge for non-attendance. The decision was borne out of Amazon’s conduct in response to unionization efforts at the Amazon Staten Island warehouse in 2022. The workers were ultimately successful in unionizing, but prior to the election, Amazon had held “hundreds of meetings there and at another location to discourage workers from supporting a union.” Chairman McFerran, in discussing the implications of the decision, stated “[t]oday’s decision better protects workers’ freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights while ensuring that employers can convey their views about unionization in a noncoercive manner.” Amazon plans to appeal the decision on the basis that it is a First Amendment violation and in direct contradiction with the text of the NRLA. Another open question is how this ruling, which has overruled a “decades-old standard,” will fare under a Trump administration.

FULL story at link above.