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• A union contract between the Carpenters
Union and the management of a tradeshow convention
center was illegal when it required that the
manager of the center have tradeshow exhibits
installed and dismantled only by companies that
were unionized. The National Labor Relations
Board's holding was affirmed by the Court
of Appeals for the Third Circuit, finding that
the agreement violated "hot
cargo" restrictions in Section 8(e) of the National Labor Relations
Act. The contract had an illegal secondary purpose
of determining the labor arrangements of other
employers by requiring subcontractors
to have union agreements.
• The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics
has reported that union membership continued
to decline slightly in 2002, (down by 280,000
from 2001), and now standing at 13.2% of all
workers. In the private sector, union members
now make up only 8.5% of all workers. Among government
employees in federal, state and local
agencies, 37.5% were union members last year,
a slight increase from 2001.
• Labor Agreements reached in 2002 showed an
increase in lump-sum provisions for wages. The Bureau
of National Affairs' study found such lump-sum
clauses in 13% of non-construction contracts.
In those settlements with lump-sum payments,
the average first year increase was 3.1%, the
median was 2.1%, and the weighted average was
1.9%. In manufacturing, lump-sum pay provisions
were contained in 26% of all manufacturing contracts,
up from 19% in 2001. The most
common form of bonus was a flat dollar amount,
appearing in 80% of those contracts with lump
sums.
• The Teamsters Union and the unionized portion
of the trucking industry agreed to a five-year
contract on February 6. Wage increases will add
$2.25 over the next five years to the present
average hourly wage of $19.90 paid to drivers
and cargo handlers. Contributions to health and
welfare over the five-year term will increase
by $3.10 per hour. The bankruptcy of Consolidated
Freightways in September, 2002 and the continued
shrinking of the unionized portion of the trucking
industry is apparent within the Teamsters Union,
with freight workers now accounting for less
than 3% of all Teamsters, according to the
Teamsters' General Secretary-Treasurer.
• A new tax-exempt organization has been formed
by several AFL-CIO member unions as a counterweight
to the National Right to Work Committee. The
new organization will be known as the
National Rights at Work Committee (NRAW), dedicated
to public education on the limits of worker rights
in the United States, and engaging
the public, political decision makers and media
in a dialogue on the issue of a worker's right
to join unions and bargain collectively.
The new NRAW will launch "an aggressive education and litigation
strategy."
•
Beverly Health & Rehabilitation Services
is obliged to post notices throughout its corporate
organization of 950 nursing homes regarding unfair
labor practices which were involved only in its
Pennsylvania facilities. The NLRB had found that
corporate officers "kept close oversight
of all regional labor developments" and
were "extensively involved" in the
unfair labor practices, and found corporate-wide
posting appropriate. The D.C. Circuit Court of
Appeals agreed with an NLRB order to this effect
but disagreed with two unfair labor practice
findings. One of those involved the refusal by
Beverly to rehire strikers who were discharged
when they did not give a 10-day notice of the
strike, required in this industry for the protection
of patients. Beverly also prevailed on an issue
of video taping leaflet picketers outside one
of its facilities. It was not unlawful surveillance
but rather a legitimate justification in gathering
evidence because Beverly believed they were trespassing
on its property -- a defense which the Administrative
Law Judge and the NLRB had "arbitrarily
ignored."
• Employers are generally unable to have a federal
court issue an injunction to stop a strike, and
the same rule applies to a labor arbitration
procedure that a labor union institutes against
an employer with which it has a contract. The
Norris-LaGuardia Act was passed in the 1930s
in order to stop the courts from issuing injunctions
growing out of "labor disputes." When
AT&T Broadband sought an injunction to halt
the arbitration of a dispute with the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers that it claimed
was not subject to arbitration, the Seventh Circuit
Court of Appeals found that arbitrability questions
surely "grow out of" labor disputes
covered by the anti-injunction terms of Norris-LaGuardia.
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