
Jason Vazquez is a staff attorney at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2023. His writing on this blog reflects his personal views and should not be attributed to the IBT.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team—the reigning world champions—reached a $24 million settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation. The settlement resolves a class action the players filed in 2019 alleging violations of the Equal Pay Act and Title VII. The legal proceedings commenced nearly six years ago, when five star players filed a complaint with the EEOC in 2016 alleging pay discrimination. The players withdrew that complaint in 2019 and subsequently filed a lawsuit in federal court, which was dismissed a year later on the grounds that “the statements offered by [the players] are insufficient to establish a genuine dispute that WNT players are paid at a rate less than the rate paid to MNT players.” That decision was appealed to the Ninth Circuit, and Tuesday’s settlement, which includes millions of dollars in backpay for dozens of players and a pledge from U.S. Soccer to equalize salaries, was announced fewer than two weeks before hearings were scheduled to begin.
Although the historic rerun union election at the Amazon packaging facility in Bessemer, Alabama began less than three weeks ago, RWDSU, the union seeking certification, revealed on Tuesday that it has already filed three unfair labor practice charges against the e-commerce conglomerate. The charges allege that Amazon removed union literature from employee breakrooms, adopted a policy restricting employee access to the facility, and compelled employees to attend “captive audience meetings.” The third is likely the most interesting to labor adherents. Captive audience meetings, today a staple of employers’ sophisticated antiunion efforts, are not expressly protected by the NLRA, and in its early years the Board proscribed them as unlawfully coercive. In the wake of the Taft-Hartley amendments, however, the agency reversed course and repudiated its earlier ruling. In short, captive audience meetings are presently permitted as a matter of Board caselaw, a precedent which RWDSU is explicitly urging the current Board to reexamine.
In the latest on the “Starbucks unionization wildfire” blazing across the nation, Starbucks employees in Phoenix, Arizona, who initiated an organizing effort last month, recently alleged in a ULP charge that store management ran afoul of the NLRA by surveilling, disciplining, and discriminating against union supporters. As Kevin observed over the weekend, unionization drives have now been launched in more than 100 Starbucks locations across the country. The coffee giant has responded by shelling out gobs of cash to antiunion law firms and repeatedly transgressing federal labor law.
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
the Supreme Court allows Trump to proceed with mass firings; Secretary of Agriculture suggests Medicaid recipients replace deported migrant farmworkers; DHS ends TPS for Nicaragua and Honduras
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.