NLRB, Scholarships and Bootleg Plays

March 31, 2014 by Leave a Comment

A bootleg play occurs when a quarterback pretends to pass off the ball in an effort to misdirect the defense, and then runs with it.

For years, universities have been engaged in a bootleg play with respect to elite football and basketball players and teaching assistants. They compensate these employees with free tuition and other “grants in aid,” despite the fact they really work for the university and, especially in the case of athletes, generate millions of dollars in revenue.

Now the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a decision classifying football players at Northwestern University as employees who are entitled to unionize (or not).

The university pays a wage to undergraduate students who work in the campus library or dining hall.  Why shouldn’t  it pay a football player who is required to work 40 to 60 hours a week in sometimes difficult conditions, while risking brain injury and chronic debilitation?

NLRB Judge Peter Sung Orh ruled the Northwestern football players are employees because, among other things, they are required to work under “strict and exacting control” by the university throughout the entire year, so much so that it interferes with their educational pursuits.

Critics argue the athletes are compensated already through scholarships (which could be construed as an admission that they are employees).  Nonetheless, an athletic scholarship is not like a scholarship to study poetry or physics. It is money paid for work performed for the university.

The Northwestern football players who get scholarships (only 85 out of 112 do) receive free tuition, room and board and other perks totaling an estimated $61,000 a year. But this  rate of compensation pales when compared to coaches, athletic administrators and the profits they generate for the university.

The real issue that strikes fear in the heart of American universities is the possibility that college athletes might demand a  share of the pie. According to the Washington Post, the television contract for the new college football playoff system is worth $7.3 billion over 10 years, and the current deal to broadcast the men’s basketball tournament is worth $10.8 billion over 14 years.

Importance of Language

Football players aren’t the only university employees who are being short-changed through a bootleg play.

Universities like call teaching assistants “graduate students” so that they can be largely unpaid. However, in the past two decades, teaching assistants (a.k.a. Academic Student Employees) have unionized at approximately two dozen public American universities.  The Internal Revenue Service considers teaching assistants to be employees and taxes their compensation as wages.

Private universities like Northwestern have fought successfully to avoid unionization of student employees but that may be changing.

The NLRB ruled in 2004 that teaching assistants at Brown University were primarily students and denied them a petition to unionize.  However,  students at New York University, which is a private institution, voted last December by a margin of 620 to 10 to affiliate with the United Automobile Workers, a national union that represents  workers in higher education across the country.

 

Judge  Ohr said the Brown precedent did not apply to football players in part because their role as athletes are separate from their academic role.  He has directed an election to take place on the question of whether the members of the Northwestern College Athletes Players Association wish to unionize. The university is expected to appeal Ohr’s decision.

Filed Under: DISPATCHES, NLRB Tagged With: , , ,

OSHA Rule Would Reveal Rogue Employers

January 27, 2014 by 1 Comment

librarycongress.twolaborersThe truth of the adage that knowledge is power is evident in backlash against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s proposed rule to publicize companies’ health and safety records.

OSHA wants to eventually create a public web site containing workplace health and safety information. Businesses already have to report this information to OSHA and this information already supposedly  is public. In reality, however, the information is not accessible.

At present, an employee has to submit a formal information request to a government bureaucrat or  an often reluctant and suspicious employer. Moreover, this needlessly arduous and time consuming process makes it is virtually impossible to compare workplaces and industries.  (e.g., Is this mining company a callous rogue or simply a representative of a dangerous industry?)

Released in November 2013, the proposed rule requires electronic submission of workplace illness and injury data information. The agency will provide a secure website for data collection and insures that any data publicized will not include employee-identifying information. In a press release,  OSHA argues that timely, establishment-specific injury and illness data “will help OSHA target its compliance assistance and enforcement resources more effectively by identifying workplaces where workers are at greater risk, and enable employers to compare their injury rates with others in the same industry.”

As usual, the opposition is led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,  fresh from its victory in defeating a proposed rule by the National Labor Relations Board  to require employers to post notices informing workers of their right to work together to improve their working conditions under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

At a public meeting called by OSHA earlier this month, Baruch Fellner, a partner of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, which represents the national chamber, argued that OSHA is not authorized by statute to create a new, publicly searchable database of workplace injury and illness records.”This is completely beyond OSHA’s mandate,” decried  Fellner. (This was the chamber’s winning argument  to defeat the NLRA posting rule.)

Opponents contend that making employers’ injury and illness data publicly available could unjustly harm an employer’s reputation because the data would not be put into context or include information about the employer workplace safety programs and improvements. They also expressed concern for the potential misuse of this data by business competitors or (gasp!) trial attorneys.

It is certainly understandable that businesses with inordinately high numbers of workplace casualties would want to keep this information under wraps. However, that same argument could be made by convicted felons and sex offenders. Which begs the question – why is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce choosing to align itself with rogue businesses that create or tolerate  conditions that result in needless workplace injuries and deaths.

Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, says the  reporting rule would permit employers, employees, the government and researchers to have better access to data that will encourage earlier abatement of hazards and result in improved programs to reduce workplace hazards and prevent injuries, illnesses and fatalities. He notes that the proposal does not add any new requirement to keep records; it only modifies an employer’s obligation to transmit these records to OSHA.

It seems obvious that true public disclosure of health and safety data could change the equation for employers that now consider employee injuries and deaths to be cheaper than spending money on best practices and workplace safety.

If this is not OSHA’s mandate, what is?

The public has until Feb. 6, 2014, to submit written comments on OSHA’s proposed rule.

Under the proposed rule, initially establishments with more than 250 employees are required to electronically submit the records on a quarterly basis to OSHA. Establishments with 20 or more employees, in certain industries with high injury and illness rates, are required to submit electronically only their summary of work-related injuries and illnesses to OSHA once a year.

Filed Under: DISPATCHES, NLRB, OSHA Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Social Media Puts Wal-Mart on the Defensive

January 21, 2014 by 2 Comments

Social media appears to be playing a significant role in an epic battle between Wal-Mart Stores, the world’s largest retailer,  and an American union that presumably would like to represent Wal-Mart workers, The United Food and Commercial Workers .

The union has channeled worker dissatisfaction with  Wal-Mart’s  wages, benefits and working conditions into an innovative social media campaign  featuring web sites funded by the union called OURWalmart (Organization United for Respect at Walmart) and Making Change at Walmart.    These sites include a fundraising arm for “striking” Wal-Mart associates, news about alleged poor labor practices by Wal-Mart, and slick videos of associates complaining about their treatment by Wal-Mart. On Tuesday, OURWalmart referred associates to information allegedly leaked by OccupyWallStreet.org on secret Wal-Mart power points   that tell managers how to fend off unionization efforts.

OURWalmart has garnered national publicity for labor protests at Wal-Mart stores across the nation and appears to be making some gains, possibly because of Wal-Mart’s seeming overreaction to the protests of associates and the reality of Wal-Mart’s stingy  pay and benefits.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Office of the General Counsel recently issued a consolidated complaint  against Wal-Mart alleging that the company violated the rights of its employees as a result of activities surrounding employee protests in 14 states. The complaint involves more than 60 employees, 19 of whom were discharged allegedly as a result of their participation in activities protected by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).  The NLRA guarantees the right of private sector employees to act together to try to improve their wages and working conditions with or without a union.

Wal-Mart contends that most of the associates were fired “for violating Walmart’s attendance policies that apply to all associates. Some of these individuals violated the attendance policy dozens of times in the last six months. In other cases, they were absent from work for more than eight days without letting anyone know when they would be returning to work. The facts present a very different story from what OUR Walmart/UFCW asserts.”

Wal-Mart has responded to the UCFW campaign with its own web site called, OURWalmartFactcheck.com , which states its purpose is “to examine claims and provide facts about the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) – a group funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. This site is sponsored and operated by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.”

Fact checker

Ironically, Walmart’s OURFactcheck.com  on Tuesday appeared to need a fact checker.

The web site incorrectly quotes a story in The Daily News Telegram of Worchester, Massachusetts, as reporting  that the average the average Walmart associate earns $12.83 per hour, and less than 1/2 of 1% of associates earnclaim_source minimum wage.  Walmart provides a link to the The Telegram story, which quotes Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman, as stating:  “In Massachusetts … the average wage of a full-time hourly associate at Walmart is $13.86. He also noted that the majority of Walmart employees are full time. Mr. Lundberg said less than 1/2 of one percent of all Walmart associates earn minimum. Walmart’s pay is comparable to other retailers; it has to be to stay competitive, he said.”

There’s obviously a difference between the average pay of a Walmart associate and the average wage in Massachusetts of a full-time hourly Walmart associate.

NLRB Complaint

According to the NLRB,  the consolidated complaint against Wal-Mart actually was authorized in November of 2013, but withheld until last week while the Office of the General Counsel engaged in failed settlement discussions with Wal-Mart.  Additional charges are under investigation.

The NLRB states that Wal-Mart unlawfully threatened employees with reprisal if they engaged in strikes and protests during two national television news broadcasts and in statements to employees at Walmart stores in California and Texas. At stores in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Washington, the NLRB says that Wal-Mart unlawfully threatened, disciplined, and/or terminated employees for having engaged in legally protected strikes and protests.  At stores in California, Florida, Missouri and Texas, the NLRB says Wal-Mart unlawfully threatened, surveilled, disciplined, and/or terminated employees in anticipation of or in response to employees’ other protected concerted activities.

Note: OurWalmart includes a “legal disclaimer” stating that the UCFW is not trying to organize Wal-Mart workers but merely to “help Wal-Mart employees as individuals or groups” in their dealings with Wal-Mart.

Filed Under: DISPATCHES, NLRB Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

NLRB Abandons Poster Rule

January 7, 2014 by 2 Comments

Given the hostile climate toward employee rights in federal courts, it is not surprising that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has abandoned its efforts to require employers to post a notification informing workers of their rights to join together to improve their working conditions.

The NLRB announced this week that it will not file an appeal in the pro-business  U.S. Supreme Court to overturn two federal court decisions rejecting  the so-called poster rule.

The NLRB wanted private-sector employers to hang a poster in a conspicuous place (i.e. lunch room) informing workers of their rights under the 75-year-old National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Many American workers today, especially recent immigrants, are ignorant of their rights under the NLRA. The poster rule is also important for non-union workers who lack a designated bargaining representative. The NLRA can come into play in non-union workplaces when, for example, an employer fires a non-union worker for discussing a safety concern with a co-worker.

It is ironic that most private-sector employers already are required by federal law to post documents in the workplace informing workers of  their rights under Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, equal employment opportunity laws, etc.

The poster rule elicited immediate opposition from a broad coalition of national business groups after it was approved by the NLRB in 2011.

Twenty-one Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives joined with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce  to oppose the poster rule, including John Kline (R-Minn.) chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in South Carolina  ruled  last summer that the NLRB lacks the authority to require employers to post notices either electronically or physically in a conspicuous place. The court said “ we find no indication in the plain language of the Act that Congress intended to grant the Board the authority to promulgate such a requirement.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit earlier ruled that the poster rule violate employers’ free speech rights.

Here are the rights that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has worked so diligently to insure that American workers do not know they possess under the NLRA:

  •  Workers can organize a union to negotiate with employers concerning wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.
  • Workers can form, join or assist a union.
  • Workers can bargain collectively through representatives of employees’ own choosing for a contract setting wages, benefits, hours, and other working conditions.
  • Workers can discuss terms and conditions of employment or union organizing with co-workers or a union.
  • Workers can engage in protected concerted activities with one or more co-workers to improve wages, benefits and other working conditions.
  •  Workers can choose not to do any of these activities, including joining or remaining a member of a union.

 

Filed Under: DISPATCHES, NLRB Tagged With: , , , , ,