Vivian Dong is a student at Harvard Law School.
Amidst a UAW-driven unionization effort, workers at Tesla’s Fremont, CA factory have filed a charge of unfair labor practices with the NLRB. The workers allege that Tesla spied, coerced, and intimidated the workers, and prevented them from communicating with one another. These efforts, they allege, violate multiple sections of the National Labor Relations Act, including their right to unionize. The workers also claim that the confidentiality agreement Tesla makes workers sign as a condition of employment is overbroad, impinging upon their rights. The confidentiality agreement does not just protect trade secrets, but threatens criminal punishment for workers who speak publicly or to the media about “everything that you work on, learn about, or observe in your work about Tesla.” The NLRB office in Oakland will investigate the workers’ charges.
The Minnesota Senate passed pre-emption legislation usurping local control over labor and employment requirements and transferring it to the state, preventing municipalities from setting local minimum wages. The bill passed with a vote of 35-31. Bill sponsor Sen. Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, argues that the bill helps Minnesota employers and increases employment because employers no longer have to comply with a thicket of differing laws and standards. The bill will merge with a Minnesota House-passed bill and come before Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, who has stated he does not yet know whether he will veto the measure.
Relatedly, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation preventing local governments from requiring contractors to use unionized workers for public projects, and from even considering the use of unionized labor as a positive factor when deciding to whom the municipality ought to award the contract. The legislation passed through the House and Senate along party lines in February. Republicans used the labor costs for the new Milwaukee Bucks stadium as an example of the excessively high wages that the bill would prevent: $12 an hour in 2017, rising to $15 an hour by 2023.
Boston Review published an essay earlier this week on the fraught relationship, historically and in the present day, between labor and the Democratic Party.
Daily News & Commentary
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July 11
Regional director orders election without Board quorum; 9th Circuit pauses injunction on Executive Order; Driverless car legislation in Massachusetts
July 10
Wisconsin Supreme Court holds UW Health nurses are not covered by Wisconsin’s Labor Peace Act; a district judge denies the request to stay an injunction pending appeal; the NFLPA appeals an arbitration decision.
July 9
In Today’s News and Commentary, the Supreme Court green-lights mass firings of federal workers, the Agricultural Secretary suggests Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers, and DHS ends Temporary Protected Status for Hondurans and Nicaraguans. In an 8-1 emergency docket decision released yesterday afternoon, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction by U.S. District Judge Susan […]
July 8
In today’s news and commentary, Apple wins at the Fifth Circuit against the NLRB, Florida enacts a noncompete-friendly law, and complications with the No Tax on Tips in the Big Beautiful Bill. Apple won an appeal overturning a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision that the company violated labor law by coercively questioning an employee […]
July 7
LA economy deals with fallout from ICE raids; a new appeal challenges the NCAA antitrust settlement; and the EPA places dissenting employees on leave.
July 6
Municipal workers in Philadelphia continue to strike; Zohran Mamdani collects union endorsements; UFCW grocery workers in California and Colorado reach tentative agreements.