House Resolution 1409 and Senate Resolution 560 were introduced on March 10, 2009. Please click 'Write Your Elected Officials' to let your representatives and senators know you oppose this legislation.

Employee Free Choice Act

Employee Free Choice Act of 2007 - Amends the National Labor Relations Act to require the National Labor Relations Board to certify a bargaining representative without directing an election if a majority of the bargaining unit employees have authorized designation of the representative (card-check) and there is no other individual or labor organization currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit.

Sets forth special procedural requirements for reaching an initial collective bargaining agreement following certification or recognition.  One of the provisions is that if after a 30-day period or such additional period as the parties may agree upon, the Service is unable to bring the parties to agreement then the arbitration panel will have binding arbitration authority to settle the suit for a period of two years.

Revises enforcement requirements with respect to unfair labor practices during union organizing drives, particularly a preliminary investigation of an alleged unfair labor practice which may lead to proceedings for injunctive relief.

Requires that priority be given to a preliminary investigation of any charge that, while employees were seeking representation by a labor organization, or during the period after a labor organization was recognized as a representative until the first collective bargaining contract is entered into, an employer: (1) discharged or otherwise discriminated against an employee to encourage or discourage membership in the labor organization; (2) threatened to discharge or to otherwise discriminate against an employee in order to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of guaranteed self-organization or collective bargaining rights; or (3) engaged in any other related unfair labor practice that significantly interferes with, restrains, or coerces employees in the exercise of such guaranteed rights.

Adds to remedies for such violations: (1) back pay plus liquidated damages; and (2) additional civil penalties.

Paycheck Fairness Act H.R. 12

The Paycheck Fairness Act would amend the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which requires that jobs requiring comparable functions, skills, effort and responsibility in similar working conditions must compensate equally.  Some stakeholders contend that the Equal Pay Act is not sufficient to remedy wage discrimination. While wage differentials remains an important workplace issue, debate continues over whether the differential is attributable to discrimination or the result of legitimate pay practices such as education, skill, experience, or tenure.
 
The Paycheck Fairness Act would limit an employer’s ability to justify paying different salaries to workers based in different locations with different costs of living. Second, the bill would lift the caps on compensatory or punitive damages for which employers would be liable, in addition to current liability for back pay. These damage penalties would apply to even unintentional pay disparities.  

(Description from SHRM Alert 1/22/2009)

Update on HR 11 -- the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Passes

Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on January 27.  President Obama signed the bill into law Thursday, January 29.

There are a number of potentially far reaching aspects of this law which will take time to sort out. For now, everyone agrees the new law will make it much easier to challenge workplace decisions made years or even decades ago if “an individual is [currently] affected by application of the decision or practice, including each time there is payment of compensation.”  Until this law is signed, claims based on decisions made years ago are barred by the 180 (or 300) day EEOC charge filing requirement.

The practical and immediate impact is this: When an employer claims that a charge was filed past the 180/300 day limit, the EEOC will look hard at whether there might be a current effect of the alleged past discrimination.  Charges that include allegations of discriminatory promotions, salaries, pay increases, layoffs, recalls, and perhaps even discharges and failures to hire (due to non-payment of compensation as the “effect”) may be deemed timely.

Charges based on old decisions can be difficult to defend.  Managers may be gone and records may be destroyed.  The courts will start to grapple with the reach of this law in the coming months and years.  This is the first in a long list of workplace bills Congress is set to consider.

Stay tuned.

Information on HR 11-- the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act 

Unions looking again for legislative success

By GARY D. ROBERTSON
Associated Press Writer

January 25, 2009.

Raleigh, N.C. — Unions have been on a roll lately in North Carolina, adding tens of thousands of members and spending more than $2 million in the past two years to help mostly Democratic candidates win.

The results at the polls – both for union representation and political candidates – have raised expectations among organizers that they will be listened to closely at the Legislative Building as the new session begins this week.

'We feel like we have good allies in office,' said MaryBe McMillan with the state AFL-CIO. 'As the demographics in North Carolina have changed, more people are educated ... and feel more positive about unions. I feel optimistic that we're going to make progress.'

North Carolina's union advance still is led by a small army compared to other states, despite victories in 2008.

The 55,000-member State Employees Association of North Carolina became a local of the Service Employees International Union, while 4,600 employees at the Smithfield Packing Co. slaughterhouse in Bladen County approved union representation in an organizing vote last month.

Union leaders say they will focus on broader worker protections, such as ensuring potential tax increases are not regressive and preventing state employee health insurance benefits from eroding as lawmakers look to fill a $300 million gap this year alone.

'Their power is ascending but that's not to say that they are in the catbird seat,' said Rick Kearney, a North Carolina State University professor and expert on union activity. 'They have a lot of entrenched and historical oppositions to overcome.'

Analysts considered unlikely that the General Assembly will eliminate a 50-year-old ban on collective bargaining by hundreds of thousands of state and local government employees, even though a House committee recommended the change in 2007.

'Maybe one day. But now, no. I don't believe that would be healthy or beneficial to the people of North Carolina,' Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare, said last week.

With North Carolina's unemployment rate at a 26-year high and state government facing a $2 billion shortfall, lawmakers will probably avoid changes that business leaders and anti-union lobbyists contend could lead to job layoffs or raise state government labor costs.

'We were effective last term in stopping legislation, and we're not going to give up this year,' said Connie Wilson, a lobbyist for the Employers' Coalition of North Carolina, an umbrella advocacy group for state businesses representing 2,500 members. 'This is the wrong possible time ... because of the dire situation of our state's economy.'

Congressional legislation could open the gates for union membership in a state where only 3 percent of workers were union members in 2007, the lowest in the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Most attention has focused on Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow employees to form unions by signing union cards, instead of holding secret ballot elections.

Kearney also points to another federal measure that would guarantee the right of public-safety officers to join unions and collectively bargain. The legislation would essentially pre-empt North Carolina's 1959 collective bargaining ban for police officers, firefighters and emergency workers hired by state and local governments.

The bill passed the U.S. House in 2007 but got stuck in the Senate last year.

President Obama's administration is sympathetic to union efforts. Kearney said the bill could provide leverage to North Carolina teachers and state employees that would not be given the green-light to negotiate.

State Rep. Dan Blue, D-Wake, was the primary sponsor of the collective-bargaining ban bill in 2007 that passed the judiciary committee he chaired but did not go further. He said he is likely to file an identical bill this year.

'It's just a matter of getting (workers) the respect that they deserve,' Blue said.

Unions and their members gave generously last year to legislative candidates and to the state Democratic Party, ultimately benefitting Gov. Beverly Perdue.

The Service Employees International Union sent the Democratic Party more than $1.1 million, including $650,000 in a 10-day period in late October, according to campaign finance reports filed with the State Board of Elections. Another $100,000 came from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in the fall campaign's final weeks.

About the same time, Perdue's campaign received more than $1 million from the party, leading Republicans to argue that unions used the party to bypass fundraising limits to help Perdue. State law bars earmarked donations, and the party says it spends money to help all candidates.

Perdue has said she opposes to collective bargaining for state workers sought by the State Employees Association, even though the group endorsed her. 'What she does while she's in office is up to her, but it's clear she's beholden to no one,' said Ardis Watkins, the association's legislative director. Basnight said donations do not make a difference to his colleagues in changing their minds of legislation.'I don't believe pressure can be applied to our membership because of what you give,' he said.

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