Illegal Employer Behaviors

What Employers CAN'T Do 

Workers who are forming, joining or already belong to Unions have greater legal rights than workers who do not.The National Labor Relations Act specifically outlines illegal actions that an employer may not take towards employees.

A supervisor or company official CANNOT:

1. Attend any Union meeting, park across the street from the meeting place to see which employees attend the meeting, or engage in any under-cover activity which would make employees feel they are being spied upon to determine who is participating in the Union campaign.

2. Tell employees the Company will fire or punish them if they engage in Union activity.

3. Lay off, discharge, or discipline any employee for Union activity.

4. Grant employees wage increases, promotions or benefits in order to keep the Union out.

5. Ask employees about their own Union membership or activities or those of fellow employees, including meeting attendance, card soliciting or signing and other forms of Union participation.

6. Assign work to create conditions intended to get rid of an employee because of Union activity.

7. Ask employees how they intend to vote.

8. Threaten employees with economic reprisals for participating in Union activities. For example, threaten to close or sell the facility, lay-off workers, or reduce employee benefits.

9. Promise benefits to employees if they vote against the Union.

10. Announce that the Company will not bargain with a Union.

11. Discriminate against Union supporters when assigning overtime or desirable work.

12. Purposely team up anti-Union employees and keep them apart from Union supporters.

13. Transfer workers on the basis of Union activity.

14. Choose employees to be laid off on the basis of weakening the Union's strength.

15. Discipline Union supporters for a particular action, and allow anti-Union employees to go unpunished for the same action.

16. Go against Company policy for the purpose of getting rid of a Union supporter.

17. Take actions that adversely affect an employee's job or pay rate because of Union activity.

18. Threaten a Union supporter through a third party.

19. Threaten workers or coerce them in an attempt to influence their vote.

20. Tell employees overtime work or premium pay will be discontinued if the facility is organized.

21. Start a petition against the Union or take part in it's circulation if started by employees.

22. Urge employees to try to influence others to oppose the Union.

Any of the above acts constitutes a violation of the National Labor Relations Act, which is the law that protects your right to organize a Union. Please report these acts, if committed, to your Organizing Committee, or a Union Representative immediately!

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FedEx pilots approve 'industry-leading' contract

   

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By Wayne Risher of The Commercial Appeal

Oct. 20, 2015

FedEx Express pilots approved a new contract agreement that contains across-the-board pay raises, signing bonuses and other improvements, the pilot union announced Tuesday.

A tentative agreement passed with 57 percent voting in favor and 43 percent against, the FedEx master executive council of the Air Line Pilots Association said.

The agreement, announced in August, calls for pay increases of 10 percent initially and slightly more than 3 percent a year through 2021, plus one-time bonuses $22,000 to $39,000 a pilot. The contract would take effect Nov. 2.

FedEx ALPA chief Chuck Dyer said the vote breakdown reflected "a tough environment for ratification" but the result was an industry-leading contract. Pilots had been in formal negotiations with FedEx management since January 2013.

"The pay, the work rules, the retirement, the health care: I don't think there's a piece of it that's not industry leading," Dyer said. "Clearly there was a large number of people, it didn't meet their expectations, which is not unusual in a vote. It's something we're going to work on."

The FedEx vote assures labor peace among the Memphis-based company's pilot force at a time when rival United Parcel Service is facing a potential work stoppage by about 2,600 pilots.

UPS pilots have been voting since Oct. 1 on whether to authorize a strike. The Independent Pilots Association is scheduled to release results of the vote Friday. UPS and its pilots have been negotiating since August 2011

ALPA represents about 4,200 FedEx Express pilots. The union said 3,732 votes were cast, 96.78 percent of eligible voters.

The first-year increase will bring FedEx pilot pay to more than $257,000 a year on average.

Dyer, a FedEx captain, said, "With the ballot to approve or reject the agreement open for nearly a month, our pilots did their due diligence to analyze and evaluate this agreement. In the end, the majority felt we achieved an agreement that brings improvements and recognizes our contribution to the success of FedEx."

FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey said, "We are pleased to have a ratified agreement that is beneficial for our pilots and for FedEx Express.  We sincerely appreciate the efforts of both negotiating teams for concluding a deal that will allow us to continue to provide outstanding service to our customers in the years ahead."

The new FedEx Express contract also contains better compensation for new hires, retirement plan enhancements and work rule improvements, Dyer said.

Dyer credited negotiating committee chairman, Captain Scott Larsen, along with ALPA staff, subject matter experts and the union's elected representatives.

"We worked closely with the National Mediation Board and FedEx to reach an agreement that was acceptable to all parties involved," Dyer said.

About Wayne Risher

Wayne Risher is a business reporter for The Commercial Appeal. He covers FedEx and the logistics industry, as well as Downtown development. He is the producer of Hub City Insider

Bring the Teamsters to Fed Ex Freight

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez Says, "Union Members Earn $200 More a Week Than Those Not In Unions"

Do union members really make $200 a week more than people who aren’t in unions? Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said "YES"

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, Perez said, "If you have a union job, you're making on average $950 a week. If you have a non-union job, you're making $750 a week. So collective bargaining is a big part of how this middle class grew in America and it continues to be an important part of who we are as Americans."

"Unions do more to raise the wages of workers with less-than-average education than they do to boost the wages of those with better-than-average education," said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution. "Unionized Ph.D.s do not gain as much from being in a union as high school dropouts, though even unionized Ph.D.s may enjoy better job security and receive bigger helpings of health and retirement benefits than their non-union counterparts."

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said "that union members earn $200 more a week than non-union workers. Is that correct? His figures are correct and his claim true.

"Unions are typically more successful in getting good fringe benefits, especially health benefits, sickness pay, and retirement benefits" Burtless said.

Thomas Edward Perez is an American politician, consumer advocate and civil rights lawyer who is the current United States Secretary of Labor.

Labor experts call for major reform to union elec­tion law

Jan­u­ary 15, 2016 2:20PM ET

by Ned Resnikoff

When a man­ager wants to quash a union drive, one of the most effec­tive tools to do that is the “cap­tive audi­ence” meet­ing — that is, a meet­ing held on com­pany prop­erty dur­ing reg­u­lar work­ing hours, with com­pul­sory atten­dance by all employ­ees. A cap­tive audi­ence meet­ing can be an oppor­tu­nity for man­age­ment or anti-​union con­sul­tants to cajole, per­suade and some­times sub­tly threaten work­ers into reject­ing unionization.

With­out the abil­ity to call their own staff-​wide meet­ings on com­pany prop­erty, unions have lit­tle to counter the cap­tive audi­ence tac­tic. But that may soon change if some of America’s lead­ing labor law experts have their way.

On Fri­day, 106 labor schol­ars — includ­ing law pro­fes­sors, his­to­ri­ans and indus­trial rela­tions experts from uni­ver­si­ties across the coun­try — filed a peti­tion with the National Labor Rela­tions Board (NLRB) ask­ing the admin­is­tra­tive body to reform reg­u­la­tions around cap­tive audi­ence meet­ings. Under their pro­posed rule, employ­ers would be penal­ized if they held cap­tive audi­ence meet­ings with­out giv­ing the union “an equiv­a­lent oppor­tu­nity to address employ­ees,” accord­ing to the petition.

If an employer fails to pro­vide equal time to the union dur­ing an orga­niz­ing drive, and the union sub­se­quently failed to secure a major­ity vote, the NLRB would have grounds to inval­i­date the results and call for a new election.

Mar­quette Uni­ver­sity labor law pro­fes­sor Paul Secunda, the pri­mary co-​petitioner, says that he doesn’t see this as a rad­i­cal pro-​union posi­tion. “It’s just about say­ing that in order to have a fair elec­tion, employ­ees need to have infor­ma­tion from both sides of the debate in order to make an informed choice,” said Secunda. “I think that’s pretty uncontroversial.”

Unions had no involve­ment in the deci­sion to file the peti­tion or its draft­ing, accord­ing to petitioners.

In the first few years fol­low­ing the pas­sage of the 1935 National Labor Rela­tions Act, the NLRB found cap­tive audi­ence meet­ings to be a vio­la­tion of that statute. But the board reversed its posi­tion in 1953; when it revis­ited the ques­tion of whether to reg­u­late cap­tive audi­ence meet­ings 13 years later in a sep­a­rate dis­pute, it left open the pos­si­bil­ity that it would set a new prece­dent — but never did so.

Since then, the meet­ings have become a fre­quently used anti-​union weapon. Between 1999 and 2003, cap­tive audi­ence meet­ings were held in almost nine out of ten union­iza­tion cam­paigns, accord­ing to a2009 Eco­nomic Pol­icy Insti­tute study writ­ten by Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity labor scholar Kate Bron­febren­ner, one of the sig­na­to­ries to Friday’s peti­tion. Unions won 73 per­cent of the cam­paigns in which employ­ers did make use of the tac­tic, Bron­febren­ner found. Where bosses did hold cap­tive audi­ence meet­ings, the win rate for unions dropped to 47percent.

Secunda said he thinks the NLRBhas a “decent chance” of adopt­ing the peti­tion­ers’ recommendation.

“There’s three mem­bers on the [typ­i­cally five-​member] board who believe that the cur­rent elec­tion process is not com­pletely unfair, and kind of tilted toward the employer,” said Secunda.

Increas­ing the odds in the peti­tion­ers’ favor is the fact that the NLRBhas spent the past two years issu­ing a flurry of union-​friendly deci­sions and reg­u­la­tions. But Demo­c­ra­tic mem­ber Kent Y. Hirozawa’s term is set to expire in August, leav­ing two vacan­cies and only two Democ­rats left on the board. It is unlikely that either Hirozawa or Repub­li­can Harry I. John­son, III, whose term expired in August 2015, will be replaced under this president.

Patrick Harrington > Bring the Teamsters to Fed Ex Freight

FLASHBACK---- Rmember how line 12DD on our W2's represents the number used to calculate whether or not someone has Cadillac insurance? Anything over $10,500 for individuals and $27,500 for family coverage will be taxed at the rate of 40% to the employer. I offer exhibit A, the W2 from a road driver at UPS freight in Charlotte, N.C. who offered this up as proof we have been not exactly told the whole truth how union insurance is WAY above "Cadillac" status. Remember how we were told in forced meetings that teamcare would be impossible to offer to employees because of the skyrocketing cost to the employers? This individual has family coverage and his insurance is some of the very best in the industry and oddly enough, comes in WAY below "Cadillac" status... Keep in mind Fedex just signed a contract with the pilots offering 100% coverage insurance yet we are told this insurance we have that has been on a downward spiral of coverage and higher and higher deductibles over the years is the best we can hope for?

At least they have protection we will be the victims of this you can bank on that!

FedEx Takes Needlessly Cruel Swipe At A Grieving Lesbian Widow

CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

BY IAN MILLHISER JAN 5, 2016 3:30 PM

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Stacey Schuett and Lesly Taboada-Hall lived together as a committed couple for nearly three decades. They had two children together. Nearly a quarter of a century into their relationship, Taboada-Hall was diagnosed with cancer. More than two years later, in 2012, the cancer had grown so severe that she took a medical leave of absence from work. As one of her last acts on Earth, Taboada-Hall married Schuett in a California civil ceremony officiated by a county supervisor. Taboada-Hall died the next day.

Yet, because of a coincidence of timing, Taboada-Hall’s former employer, FedEx, now claims that her surviving spouse is not entitled to the survivor’s pension benefits Taboada-Hall earned in her 26 years with the company. Taboada-Hall died six days before United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Because Taboada-Hall died just a few days too soon, FedEx now claims that Schuett does not count as her wife.

In the eyes of the law, Schuett and Taboada-Hall are married, and they were married as of the day of their wedding ceremony. Although California law did not permit new marriage licenses to be issued to same-sex couples on the day of their wedding, Schuett successfully filed a “Petition to Establish the Fact, Date, and Place of Marriage” in state court, and the court responded with an order declaring that she and Taboada-Hall were married effective June 19, 2013, the day of their wedding.

Nevertheless, FedEx points to a provision of its pension plan, which defines a worker’s “spouse” to “have the same meaning as set forth in 1 U.S.C.A. § 7 (a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife), and shall be deemed to refer solely to the persons who have entered into a marriage, as defined in 1 U.S.C.A. § 7 (a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife).” “1 U.S.C.A. § 7” refers to the section of federal law declared unconstitutional in Windsor. They claim that the plan’s definition of “spouse” trumps the Supreme Court’s determination that DOMA is unconstitutional and the state’s determination regarding the date of the couple’s marriage.

Fortunately for Schuett, there is a federal law that protects her from efforts to cut her out of her late wife’s pension. Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, covered pension plans must provide that “in the case of a vested participant who dies before the annuity starting date and who has a surviving spouse, a qualified preretirement survivor annuity shall be provided to the surviving spouse of such participant.” After Windsor, moreover, the word “spouse” must be read to include same-sex spouses when it appears in a federal law.

On Monday, a federal court largely embraced this reasoning. Although the court’s opinion dealt only with a preliminary motion filed by FedEx, it now appears very unlikely that the judge in this case will ultimately rule against Schuett.

Nevertheless, after the Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which expanded the rights of religious objectors to the law, it is possible that a similarly situated widow or widower could wind up in a much worse position. Hobby Lobby contains language suggesting that “large, publicly traded corporations” such as FedEx may not be able to assert the same religious objections as a family-owned corporation such as Hobby Lobby. Nevertheless, if a widow or widower like Schuett who works for a company like Hobby Lobby brings a similar claim, it is possible that the Supreme Court would hold that Hobby Lobby gives that company the right to discriminate.

FedEx Ground Wage & Hour Class Action Settlement

FedEx Ground Package System Inc. has agreed to pay $226.5 million in order to settle a class action lawsuit that claims the shipping company misclassified drivers as independent contractors rather than employees which deprived them of certain benefits.

Seventeen pick-up and delivery drivers filed the FedEx class action lawsuit over allegations that FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery failed to provide them with employee rights under California law including: unreimbursed employment expenses, illegal wage deductions, failure to provide meal and rest breaks, and unpaid overtime pay.

In addition, the FedEx Ground class action lawsuit claims that according to company policy, the defendant “routinely threatens contract termination of any driver requesting time off for an illness or injury to himself or covered family member.“

The 17 plaintiffs allege that FedEx requires pick-up and delivery drivers who seek a leave that would be covered by the Family Medical Leave Act to hire pre-approved temporary replacement drivers at the driver’s own expense.

At the time that the FedEx class action settlement was reached, the case was moving towards trial to determine if FedEx Ground violated the California labor laws.

FedEx Ground continues to claim that the independent contractor classification is appropriate and denies that it has broken any laws but agreed to settle the wage and hour class action lawsuit in order to avoid the cost of further litigation.

Who’s Eligible

The FedEx Ground class action lawsuit settlement is open to Class Members in three different classes:

General Class – Includes all persons who entered into a FedEx Ground or FedEx Home Delivery Form Operating Agreement in order to drive a vehicle on a full-time basis from Nov. 17, 2000 through Oct. 15, 2007 and were dispatched out of a terminal in the state of California between Nov. 17, 2000 and Aug. 31, 2015.

Overtime Subclass – Includes Class Members who entered into a FedEx Ground or FedEx Home Delivery Form Operating Agreement in order to drive a vehicle on a full-time basis from Nov. 17, 2000 through Oct. 15, 2007 and were dispatched out of a terminal in the state of California between Nov. 17, 2000 and Aug. 31, 2015 to operated a vehicle with gross vehicle weight rating of less than 10,001 pounds.

Meal and Rest Period Settlement Subclass – Includes all persons who entered into a FedEx Ground or FedEx Home Delivery Form Operating Agreement from Nov. 17, 2000 through Oct. 15, 2007 in order to drive a vehicle on a full-time basis since Aug. 1, 2011 to provide package pick-up and delivery services pursuant to the Operating Agreement; and were dispatched out of a terminal in the state of California between Aug. 1, 2011 and Aug. 31, 2015.

Potential Award

Varies.

The FedEx Ground Settlement of $226.5 million will be divided among Class Members in the following Subclasses:

General Class – Class Members will receive a “Weekly Base Settlement Payment” for each week in which they worked full-time (defined as 35 hours or more) adjusted for each year during the claim period to reflect accrued statutory interest at rate of 10% simple. The estimated amount that will be awarded to Class Members who drove for FXG is $240 and FHD is $190.

An absolute minimum payment of $250 will be allocated to persons who received the class notice, but who did not fit the FedEx General Class definition during any portion of the class period.

Overtime Subclass – Class Members will receive additional settlement payments in pro rata settlement shares from an overtime settlement reserve fund of $16 million. Payments are calculated based the daily and weekly overtime hours for members of the Overtime Subclass as derived from records produced by FXG.

Meal and Rest Period Settlement Subclass – Members of the General Class who continued to drive after Aug. 1, 2011, will receive additional settlement payments in pro rata settlement shares from a meal and rest period settlement reserve fund of $5.6 million, calculated based on days worked between Aug. 1, 2011 and Aug. 31, 2015, as derived from records produced by FXG.

Proof of Purchase

In order to receive payment from the FedEx class action settlement, Class Members must meet the eligibility criteria and submit a valid Claim Form before the deadline of Jan. 15, 2016.

Claim Form

CLICK HERE TO FILE A CLAIM »

Claim Form Deadline

01/15/2016

Case Name

Dean Alexander, et al. v. FedEx Ground Package System Inc., Case No. 3:05-CV-0038 EMC, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

Final Hearing

03/24/2016

Settlement Website

www.Alexander-V-FedExGround-Settlement.com

Claims Administrator

Alexander v FedEx Settlement Administrator
c/o Rust Consulting Inc. – 4920
PO Box 2396
Faribault, MN 55021-9096
800-711-1958