Union sympathizers - treatment of
HRLASS
238 Posts
I would appreciate feedback if others have been in this situation:
How do you treat either a non-union employee, or an employee belonging to Union B, when they do not want to work in sympathy with a Union A strike action during collective bargaining? Can we make them take paid vacation? Do we have to be "hands off" or be liable under the National Labor Relations Act? Is there any action we can legally take in this situation? Any suggestions will be appreciated.
How do you treat either a non-union employee, or an employee belonging to Union B, when they do not want to work in sympathy with a Union A strike action during collective bargaining? Can we make them take paid vacation? Do we have to be "hands off" or be liable under the National Labor Relations Act? Is there any action we can legally take in this situation? Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Comments
Next, as I understand it, workers who honor a legal primary picket line at their place of employment may be replaced, but not disciplined by their employer. If the primary strike is economic as opposed to an unfair labor practice strike, the ee may be replaced permanently. This is one 'sticky wicket', however, and you don't want to go there in my opinion.
Get legal advice, is my advice.
What is PLA?
What I know so far is that if an employee refuses to work, or anything relevant to performance issues, those can be dealt with as performance issues under our policies as usual. Depending on what the employee does while not working - legal vs illegal picketing for example - they may or may not be protected by the NLRA. I'm still looking for more info.
What does your labor relations subdepartment say? Supposedly they're just down the hall or at the end of a phone line.
Our Labor Relations department is two doors down. I have lunch with them every day. We have several meetings throughout the year to discuss developments involving unions. These are great times of fellowship and I always enjoy gaining insight into an area where I am not heavily involved in day to day duties. I am sure not only could I walk down to see them, call them on the phone, I could also email them with any question and they would promptly provide an answer. HEY, that is kind of like the idea of this Forum isn't it?! Get a group of professionals that can share ideas, answer questions, and provide support - have them communicate and exchange information? BRILLIANT!
Since sharing sources is also a part of this sharing, does anyone know of a good reference website for labor questions in addition to or other than nlrb.gov?
Most likely the er's CBA will have a statement saying that a picket line will not be recognized until the corrent contract expires. So, basically, the ee that refuses to cross the picket line could be termed. If the CBA says that Union B can recognize the picket line of Union A (which I am told would be crazy to allow in the CBA), it is the decision of Union B, not the member, to either recognize.not recognize the picket line.
If this Union B member did not follow the contractual obligations in the CBA, the er could "pressure" the union to have the ee appear before a Tribunal of union members. The ee could be fines for not following these contractual obligations. The fine would be determined by the Tribunal and sent to the District Court to be enforced. The Court would not look at the case as an employment issue, but as a contractual issue. See, exchanging information is great. I learned something very interesting from this thread. Communication, what a novel idea!
Isn't communication great?
Feel free to ask those same folks my question on reference websites, too.....
1) If employee crosses picket line and reports to work, any policy violations can be treated as performance issues.
2) If the non-union employee, or employee member of another union, chooses to honor the picket line, they are to be treated as another striker. They have no job protection and may be replaced, but a) cannot be terminated for cause, (i.e. job abandonment or absence violations), b) we are required to rehire them when we have a vacancy for that position, but c) we are not required to bump a strike replacement worker in order to rehire them.
Sympathy strikers are protected even if another collective bargaining agreement has a no-strike clause as the NLRB differentiates.
Still looking for those reference websites....
If the employee belonging to Union Local B has in his contract a no-stike provision, I'd be surprised that their sympath strike must be ignored.
I do not believe your attorney's advice that if John Doe, a non union member, with no union protection, has the right to walk off the job and still has rights to be rehired. I'd have that conversation again.
It's always been my understanding that if you go recognizing the collective actions of non-unions, then you have, in effect, recognized a union.
But, I'm no lawyer and supposedly he is.
Actually, it was our outside counsel who returned from vacation. I do have reference sites (which is why I am looking for more on labor) and I do perform my own research, working almost exclusively for the HR department. I am a paralegal, PHR (formerly HR Legal Assistant) and though we do have an in-house legal department, we no longer have an in-house employment law, labor or benefits attorney. It's me and various outside counsel.
One of my concerns in working on the issue was that I have read in numerous places lately that the National Labor Relations Act does protect non-union employees in this situation. It was our outside counsel who gave me the extent of the protection. Evidently some companies also have not been aware of that protection and were successfully sued thinking it applied only to union employees.
Sounds like your retained counsel is giving you good advice. Unrepresented and even secondary unionized employees have a good deal of protection during a strike. Heck, what is 'concerted action' if it doesn't give employees license to steal?
Re unions in New Mexico -
In my last job I was working for an open shop (non-union) electrical and mechanical contractor who was subject at the time to a major unionization push from the local IBEW and we had to deal with fun things like multiple ULP charges, salts, one man strikes, multiple calls for OSHA inspections, etc. (We stayed open shop.)
In my current job we have cbas with both the IBEW and the Plumbers and Pipefitters unions, so I'm on the other side with different issues to deal with. Yes, both unions do have a presence in New Mexico. How large in comparison to other states, I don't know. I expect considerably smaller because of the lack of population density here.