Remember last year when the United Autoworkers Union tried to organize the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee? Remember how the UAW failed to win the secret ballot election to represent the VW workers, despite the company welcoming the union at the plant? Well, the UAW was down, but not out. VW and the UAW are…

Resident physicians and fellows at Howard University Hospital in Washington D.C. recently joined the Service Employees International Union. According to union leadership, residents had a range of concerns including parking, meals, salary, and the financial sustainability of the hospital. The financial stability of the hospital element is most noteworthy. In late 2014, the Washington D.C.…

National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Richard Griffin instructed NLRB Regional Offices to request employees be reimbursed for job search costs and work-related expenses they incur due to violations of the National Labor Relations Act. This order modified a 2011 order by then acting-general counsel Lafe Solomon. Solomon wrote that the Board’s practice was to…

Most of the organizing activity involving university professors has involved the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). That makes sense, since professors are in somewhat of a service profession. But not so for the adjunct faculty members working for Robert Morris University. They recently filed a petition for election with the National Labor Relations Board seeking…

Last year, the NLRB issued a controversial decision that made franchisors “joint employers” with the individual franchisees with whom they had contracts. The decision has the potential to dramatically overturn decades of established laws and greatly affect the franchise model for restaurants and other small businesses that contract with a larger brand name. The NLRB…

The Teamsters have contacted the CEOs of six Silicon Valley-area companies – Amtrak, Apple, eBay, Genetech, Yahoo, and Zynga – to tell them that their drivers want to join a union. According to the Union, a majority of the 120 drivers that transport those companies’ employees have signed authorization cards to be represented by Teamsters…