News & Commentary May 19, 2023

[Omaha Steve]

https://onlabor.org/may-19-2023/

By Swap Agrawal

Swap Agrawal is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s news and commentary, Minnesota Democrats pass a sweeping labor bill; the Supreme Court held that a State National Guard is a federal agency under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute; the EEOC released new guidance regarding employer use of automated hiring tools; and house cleaning app Handy settles a worker misclassification lawsuit for $6 million.

On Tuesday, the Minnesota state legislature passed a sweeping labor bill that Governor Walz intends to sign into law. The bill makes nine major changes that have long been on Democrats’ wish list, including mandating paid sick days, banning noncompete agreements, allowing teachers to negotiate over classroom sizes, creating a sectoral bargaining system for nursing home workers, banning captive audience meetings, boosting funding for workplace safety inspectors, and increasing protections for workers in meatpacking plants and construction sites. The bill also takes aim at Amazon’s warehouse labor practices by requiring employers to provide warehouse workers with written information about all quotas and performance standards they are subject to and forbidding employers from taking disciplinary action against a worker who fails to meet a quota that wasn’t disclosed. These provisions are a result of organizing by East African workers who have spent years fighting for better pay and conditions at Amazon warehouses. To enforce this provision, the bill establishes a private cause of action for workers.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court held that a State National Guard acts as a federal agency for purposes of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute. The case, Ohio Adjutant General’s Department et al. v. Federal Labor Relations Authority et al., arose from the Ohio National Guard’s effort to unilaterally end its nearly 50-year-old collective bargaining relationship with an American Federation of Government Employees affiliate that represents Guard technicians. This decision preserves federal sector labor law rights for more than 32,000 dual-status technicians who are represented by unions in every state but Mississippi.

FULL story at link above.