The restaurant industry is taking its cue from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce , which has been a remarkably successful behind-the-scenes lobbyist in the federal court system for years.
The National Restaurant Association has launched a Restaurant Law Center to “protect and advance” the restaurant industry.
In its first action, the Restaurant Law Center has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a 2016 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Oregon Restaurant and Lodging et al v. Perez, et al that prohibits employers from forcing tipped employees to share gratuities with non-tipped staff. The Restaurant Law Center wants to void a 2011 rule by the U.S. Department of Labor that was upheld by the 9th Circuit.
The Oregon decision conflicts with an earlier decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and creates a split in the federal circuits that can only be resolved by the nation’s high court.
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The Restaurant Law Center says it is now “managing” the Oregon restaurant case.
After years of criticism, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is now applauding the EEOC for focusing on “compliance assistance” rather than enforcement and litigation.
Randel K. Johnson, a senior vice president of the Chamber, “commends” the EEOC for “identifying efforts to focus resources on compliance assistance” in a letter submitted to the EEOC in connection with a draft of the EEOC’s proposed new strategic plan for 2018-2022. The Chamber is a conservative, profit-making group that lobbies the legislature and federal courts on behalf of business interests. It consistently opposes pro-labor measures.
The EEOC is seeking comment on a draft of its proposed strategic plan until 5 p.m .ET on January 8, 2018. To weigh in, go here or to https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EEOC-2017-0005-0001.
In the letter, Johnson refers to the Chamber’s 2014 report to Congress in which the Chamber criticized the EEOC for “enforcement and litigation abuses.” The Chamber’s report came at a time when the EEOC was litigating the fewest number of cases in modern history and had completely ignored a major increase in age discrimination cases during and since the Great Recession. In 2013, the EEOC had filed 147 lawsuits, compared to 416 in 2005. But the Chamber’s report was an effective public relations ploy and seems to have had a big impact on the EEOC, which reduced its litigation efforts even further. The EEOC filed only 114 lawsuits in 2016 (of which only TWO contained age discrimination claims). Continue reading “The EEOC’s Surprising New Fan – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce”
Note: About a week after this story was written, the EEOC filed a lawsuit against a Texas television station because it allegedly failed to consider qualifications when it rejected a 42-year-old female applicant for a position as a weather person. This lawsuit completely contradicts the EEOC’s decision in the case below and raises questions about what the EEOC’s position is with respect to qualifications.
A recent decision by the EEOC raises questions about whether the secrecy surrounding the EEOC’s handling of discrimination complaints hides serious procedural irregularities and basic unfairness.
EEOC spokeswoman Kimberly Smith-Brown has said that federal law “prohibits EEOC employees from confirming or denying the existence of charge filings, investigations or administrative resolutions. The only time information about a specific case becomes public is if EEOC files a lawsuit against the employer, which is usually a last resort.” This means that complaints and documents associated with the EEOC’s adjudication of complaints are secret – except in the rare instance when the EEOC files a lawsuit or a complainant objects publicly (and someone listens) to the EEOC’s handling of her complaint.
The EEOC’s secrecy rule stands in sharp contrast to the openness of the federal court system. If a complaint is filed in federal court, it is public and so are the documents associated with the complaint, unless the judge enters an order to seal the file. That order can be challenged by the media. Public access to court records serves to insure the integrity of the court system. The EEOC’s closed door rule leaves the public in the dark about the basis for complaints, why the Administrative Law Judge ruled the way h/she did, the context for the OFO’s decision on an appeal of the ALJ’s ruling and why the EEOC chose to affirm or reject the OFO’s decision. With secrecy, the public has no way to insure the integrity of the EEOC’s handling of complaints.
Not only does secrecy fail to insure integrity at the EEOC but it clearly benefits discriminatory corporations and businesses. Their customers never find out about their illegal acts and neither do their employees, who might put two-and-two together and file their own discrimination complaints. Complainants, who are almost always individuals, may prefer to have their name remain confidential because the mere fact they filed a complaint may make it difficult for them to find new employment. However, this preference can be accommodated through the use of a pseudonym, which is a practice the EEOC already employs when it publishes a precedential decision.
Secrecy allows the EEOC to evade accountability for misconduct and discriminatory rulings.
Nice to see someone calling out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which frequently inserts itself into national litigation as a “friend of the court.”
In reality, the Chamber is almost always an advocate for a dues paying corporate member and espouses a position that is anti-employee and anti-consumer. In 2014, I argued the Chamber was a federal court lobbyist.
According to Reuters, the firm of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein has opposed the Chamber’s request to file an amicus or “friend of the court” brief in a case involving a challenge by Direct TV to the certification of a class action by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Lieff’s brief argues the Chamber, the Chamber’s lawyers, DirectTV and Direct TV’s lawyers are bound so closely together that even under a liberal reading of the definition of an amicus curiae, the Chamber cannot legitimately be regarded as a friend of the court.
“The Chamber is not merely a friend of the party, but essentially the party itself.” – Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein
Continue reading “U.S. Chamber of Commerce No “Friend of the Court””
You might think it would be an embarrassment to our nation’s largest employer – the federal government – that corporate America is defending age discrimination in hiring by pointing out the U.S. government engages in the same behavior.
Most recently, the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC), an association of America’s 250 largest corporations, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in an age discrimination case in which it opposed allowing older job applicants to file disparate impact lawsuits challenging broad-based discriminatory hiring practices. If they are allowed to do so, the EEAC warns, numerous federal programs “most certainly will be impacted… ”
The EEAC goes on to cite various federal training, education and hiring programs that are closed to older workers, including the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, a residential program open to individuals between the ages of 18 and 24 who perform team-based national and community service, including disaster response and environmental stewardship. Members receive $4,000 for ten months of service, health benefits, $400 a month to pay for childcare and an educational award of $5,730.
Come to think of it, why can’t a 40-year-old join the Corps and dedicate a year of his/her life to community service for the same amount of remuneration?
Last May, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a friend-of-the-court brief in which it defended age discrimination in hiring by noting that even the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) does it. The Chamber cited the EEOC Attorney Honor Program, which employs in “permanent” positions “third-year law student[s], “full-time graduate law students[s],” and “Judicial Law Clerk[s] whose clerkship must be [their] first significant legal employment following [their] graduation.” The EEOC states on its web site that graduates of the Honor Program go on to serve as trial attorneys or Administrative Judges in the EEOC’s District Offices. The EEOC program appears to have a disparate impact upon older workers because the vast majority of law school students and graduates are under the age of 40.
It is hard to believe but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has accused the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) of overreaching in enforcing our nation’s employment discrimination laws. Hard to believe because the opposite is true.
Due to budget and staff cuts, the EEOC is litigating the fewest number of cases in modern history –148 in 2013 compared to 314 in 2009 and 416 in 2005. The EEOC has practically ignored the epidemic of age discrimination that has persisted since the start of the Great Recession in 2007. The EEOC received 21,396 complaints of age discrimination in 2013 but filed only seven lawsuits that year with claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
All of this makes it supremely ironic that the Chamber, which describes itself as “Standing Up for American Enterprise,” is urging the Congress to treat the EEOC as if it is a rogue agency that is bent on crushing the last vestiges of free enterprise in America. Continue reading “Chamber Renews Assault on EEOC”
When people think of lobbyists, they usually think of groups that work behind the scenes to influence legislators in the U.S. Congress.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, however, has had tremendous success “lobbying” federal courts through “friend of the court” briefs filed in lawsuits on behalf of its conservative corporate clients. For example, the Chamber routinely opposes any perceived expansion of worker rights and it usually prevails.
The Chamber, and its President Thomas Donahue, who earns a salary of $4.95 million a year, spend far more money to influence decision-makers than any other lobbying group.
The Center for Responsive Politics at Open Secrets.org estimated last year that the Chamber spent $1 billion from 1998 to 2013, which is three times the amount spent by the nearest runner up, General Electric, which spent about $294 million over the same period. No union, labor, consumer or environmental group was listed in the top 20 U.S. lobbying groups.
National Labor Relations Board
At present, the Chamber is a critical player in a lawsuit opposing President Barack Obama’s 2012 recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB). Obama was forced to resort to recess appointments during Congress’s Christmas vacation in 2012 after encountering a wall of Republican resistance to his proposed appointments.
To challenge the recess appointments, the Chamber joined in a lawsuit filed by Noel Canning Corp., a small bottling company in Yakima, Washington. Noel Canning was the subject of an adverse decision issued by the NLRB in an unfair labor practices dispute. The Chamber argued that the NLRB lacked the authority to issue the ruling because it was not comprised of constitutionally appointed board members.
The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in the Chamber’s favor last year, holding that Obama’s appointments violated the Recess Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The appeals court said recess appointments may be made only during the recess that occurs between each session of Congress and not during breaks that occur while Congress is still in session. The Court also said recess appointments can only be made to fill positions that become vacant during the recess.
The NLRB filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a strong pro-business majority. The Court heard the case in January and could, in its ruling, throw the NLRB into chaos and upset more than a thousand NLRB decisions issued during the past two years.
The Chamber also wants to “save” the CFPB by replacing its director with a bipartisan five-member commission and bring the CFPB under Congressional control. This would castrate the new agency, which was created after massive fraud on Wall Street led to a world-wide economic meltdown from which the world (including the U.S.) has yet to recover.
Last year, the Chamber successfully opposed the so-called “poster rule” proposed by the NLRB to require employers to pose notices in the workplace informing workers of their right to work together to improve their working conditions.
The Chamber does not limit itself to “lobbying” the courts and the legislature. A Google search shows the Chamber in February inserted itself into a special election in Florida. According to Politico, the Chamber funded a TV commercial attacking Democratic Congressional candidate Alex Sink for supporting the Affordable Care Act which, the commercial states, will mean that 300,000 Floridians will “lose their current coverage because of Obamacare.”
The Chamber describes itself as “the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations.”
The 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.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has called on Congress to set aside politics when it comes to funding the federal courts.
Oh, the irony.
In his year end report, he wrote, “The United States courts owe their preeminence in no small measure to statesmen who have supported a strong, independent, and impartial judiciary as an essential element of just government and the rule of law.”
This from a Supreme Court justice who is considered to be the most pro-business, anti-worker justice since World War II.
One cannot help but wonder how the Court hopes to rally public support when it has consistently refused to allow its proceedings to be televised and has provided virtually no leadership to encourage the use social media and internet technology to better serve the public. The Roberts’ court has done little, if anything, to help the public understand the importance of the judiciary is a democratic society.
The U.S. Supreme Court who?
A suggestion for Congress – this might be a good time to encourage the Court to open its doors to television cameras.
Moreover, the Roberts’ court appears to be terribly, woefully and sadly out of touch with the masses, tuning out the little folk who pay federal judges’ hefty salaries while providing a megaphone to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Roberts is seeking $7 billion appropriation in 2014, which compares to $6.97 billion allocated last year (reduced by about $300 million by sequestration, after Congress gave the courts an additional $51 million in October). The Court has passed along budget cuts to federal public defender offices, clerks, parole and probation officers.
The business of federal courts appears to be down overall. Filings in civil and criminal cases grew by 1 percent in 2013 but filings in appeals courts dropped by 2 percent; filings in the Supreme Court dropped by 2.6 percent; and, filings in bankruptcy courts dropped by 12 percent.
One reason for the decline may be that victims of employment discrimination are foregoing the use of federal courts because of the hostility of federal judges to job discrimination claims.
A 2013 article in The Minnesota Law Review reviews some 2,000 U.S. Supreme Court decisions and ranked the 36 justices who served on the court from 1946 to 2011 by the proportion of their pro-business votes.
Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., both appointed by GOP President George W. Bush, are the most likely to vote in favor of business interests of any of the 36 justices who has served since 1946. And three other current conservative justices are in the top ten of most pro-business justices since 1946. They are Justices Clarence M. Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy.
Also on the Court are Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia M. Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, all appointed by Democratic presidents.
The study was prepared by Lee Epstein, a law professor at the University of Southern California; William M. Landes, an economist at the University of Chicago; and Judge Richard A. Posner, of the federal appeals court in Chicago, who teaches law at the University of Chicago.
Employers may have won the battle to keep American workers ignorant of rights they have held for 70 years ago under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in South Carolina recently ruled the National Labor Relations Board lacks the authority to require employers to post notices either electronically or physically “in a conspicuous place” informing workers of their rights under the NLRA.
This holding follows an earlier ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that the poster rule violated employers free speech rights.
The NLRB contends that American workers are largely ignorant of their rights under the NLRA, adding that the poster rule is particularly important for non-union workers who lack a designated bargaining representative.The NLRA can come into play for non-union employees when, for example, an employer fires a non-union worker for discussing a safety concern or other concerns about working conditions.
The poster informed employees that they have a right to form and join unions, collectively bargain with representation, discuss the terms of their employment and take action to improve working conditions.
The poster rule elicited immediate opposition from a broad coalition of national business groups after it was approved by the NLRB in 2011.
Interestingly, 21 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives joined with the chamber to oppose the poster rule, including John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
The South Carolina appeals court ruled the NLRB is not charged with informing employees of their rights under the NLRA and “ 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.”
Earlier, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held the notice-posting rule violated Section 8(c) of the NLRA, which prohibits the board from finding employer speech that is not coercive to be an unfair labor practice.
In addition to Kline, the following members of the U.S. Congress House of Representatives signed on to an amicus brief opposing the NLRB rule requiring that employers post a notice advising workers of their rights:
After years of criticism, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is now applauding the EEOC for focusing on “compliance assistance” rather than enforcement and litigation.