Labor & Employment Law Update

As labor unions continue to target banks and credit unions – employers that, as mentioned in our previous blog, unions historically avoided – employers in the financial industry must be aware of labor law developments.  It is critical that employers know and understand the rules of engagement in traditional labor law --- particularly as the law develops under the current administration.  What now will trigger an unfair labor practice charge or the ire of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is much different than a few years ago.  Additionally, the rules and procedures surrounding a union organizing drive is changing dramatically and evolving into a very pro-union process.

On November 21, 2022, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed Assembly Bill 8092B, amending the state's labor law to clarify that employers cannot retaliate against employees for “any legally protected absence pursuant to federal, local or state law.” 

To strengthen enforcement and improve compliance with workplace safety standards and reduce worker injuries and illnesses, the U.S. Department of Labor is expanding the criteria for placement in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program (“SVEP”).

In another pro-union decision, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) recently held that employers are responsible for all “direct or foreseeable pecuniary harms” sustained by employees as a result of an unfair labor practice.  While such remedies have been ordered sparingly in the past on a case-by-case basis, the Board now mandates such an award in every successful unfair labor practice charge.

A 2019 study conducted by the U.S. Department of labor found that food production workers in Illinois and Ohio had significantly higher injury rates than the overall rates for manufacturers in the private sector. To try and correct this trend, OSHA started the Local Emphasis Program focused on more than 1,400 manufacturing facilities in both Illinois and Ohio.

With the holidays upon us, companies are assessing year-end to-do’s and considering what 2023 will bring. For companies employing California residents, compliance with the new California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) should be at the top of their list. Indeed, to date, companies that employed California residents had a reprieve from the consumer-facing rules and requirements of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The CCPA, which is, essentially, a data privacy “bill of rights” for Californians, even impacted many companies based outside of California but only as to their consumer-side relationships.

In 1986, the Reagan administration instituted use of the I-9 Immigrant form, requiring employers to verify their employees’ identity and eligibility to work. While the concept was simple and the current form was meant to be simple, compliance has been anything but simple and I-9 forms can feel like a minefield.

In another example of the Department of Labor (DOJ) pursuing criminal anti-trust cases against employers throughout the country, on October 27^th, 2022, VDA OC, LLC (formerly Advantage On Call or AOC), a health care staffing company, pled guilty to conspiring with a competitor to assign and fix nurses salaries within a specific school district in Nevada, which violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act. We have previously written in more detail regarding the DOJ’s new commitment to criminally prosecute supposed labor market collusion amongst competitors. This guilty plea is essentially the DOJ’s first “win” in its criminal enforcement of labor violations under the federal antitrust laws, after incurring two prior losses.  If employers are not attuned to this area of the law already, this serves as yet another wake up call.

As we discussed in our previous blog post, in 2021 the EEOC issued a technical assistance guidance addressing employers’ obligations under Bostock v. Clayton County, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 landmark decision holding that Title VII prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. We blogged about the Bostock decision in June 2020.

Proposed Amendment 1 to the Illinois Constitution creates many unknowns. However, it’s quite clear that the amendment accomplishes two major goals of labor organizations in Illinois. First, this will prevent Illinois from enacting any law that permits it to adopt “Right-to-Work” on any local or state level. Second, it will prevent lawmakers (in any level of government) from passing any law or local ordinance that attempts to reform, modify, moderate or in any manner address public union benefits and working conditions that are ultimately bargained for and agreed to in the past, current or future.