• 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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