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 On Thursday the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled the
owner of a California recycling plant was a "joint employer" with
the contractor that hired workers at the plant, essentially forcing
both to bargain with the union together or risk violating U.S. labor
law.
Business groups, arguing that the ruling could lead to higher costs
and hurt the economy, are pushing the Republican-led Congress to
overturn it, in part it because the company named in the decision -
Browning-Ferris - cannot challenge it in a federal court without
overcoming a number of procedural hurdles.
Unions see the decision as a breakthrough not just in efforts to
help employees organizes at franchisees of McDonald's Corp <MCD.N>
and other chains but also as a tool to counter the proliferation of
subcontracting in other industries in which workers are one or two
steps removed from the companies indirectly controlling them.
Manufacturers including auto workers, food processors, steelmakers
and aerospace companies are potential targets for union campaigns,
said Elizabeth Bunn, director of the AFL-CIO's organizing
department, noting that plant workers are often not directly
employed by the parent firm.
"You literally can walk into almost any non-union manufacturing
plant in the United States and you’ll see workers working on a line
and not be able to distinguish who is temp from an agency and who is
a direct employee of the company,” she said.
Big labor has focused much of its resources over the past few years
on pushing for higher wages in the fast-food industry, and the
Browning-Ferris ruling could have implications for an ongoing NLRB
case seeking to hold McDonald accountable as a "joint employer" for
alleged violations at franchisees.
'GAME-CHANGER'
But union organizers see Thursday's ruling as paving the way for
gains across a range of industries given the widespread use of
subcontracting by the manufacturing and service sectors to lower
costs.
“It’s certainly a game changer,” said Teague Paterson, a partner at
Beeson Tayer & Bodine, a law firm representing the union in the NLRB
case. “Unions and workers have been frustrated by these triangulated
relations that the board condoned in the past. It certainly opens
the door to more organizing.”
Rand Wilson, a veteran organizer and a communications and policy
director at a Massachusetts chapter of the Services Employees
International Union, said he saw potential in warehousing, cleaning
services and health care.
Another segment widely cited by organizers and labor experts is the
warehouses of companies like Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O>, Wal-Mart
Stores Inc <WMT.N> and Google Inc <GOOGL.O>, which are often filled
with workers from staffing agencies or contract firms.
The Teamsters union recently won an election to represent warehouse
and shipping workers at Google Express, the technology giant's
shopping delivery service. The workers are employed through staffing
firm Adecco <ADEN.VX>.
Rome Aloise, president of the Teamsters in Northern California, said
the Browning-Ferris ruling means Google will now have to be part of
the discussions about working conditions with the union and the
contractor.
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"This is a classic case. We won and are going into negotiations and
now Google will have to come to the table."
It was a local branch of the Teamsters that originally brought the
complaint about a union election at the Browning-Ferris recycling
plant to the labor relations board, and the union has been active in
organizing truck drivers and warehouse workers at delivery companies
and tech firms.
Amazon, Google and Adecco were not immediately available for
comment. Wal-Mart spokesman Brian Nick said the company was still
reviewing the decision but has concerns.
TOUGH CHALLENGE
Challenging the ruling in court will not be easy, opponents say,
because a court could only take up the case if closely-held
Browning-Ferris refuses to negotiate with the workers' union. "This
will not be resolved quickly,” said Browning-Ferris's attorney
Stuart Newman. He declined to specifically comment on the company’s
next legal steps.
Trade groups have little to no legal recourse, since they were not
the subject of the NLRB's ruling.
“The litigation strategy is somewhere between challenging and
nonexistent, and of course the NLRB knows that,” said Michael
Layman, a vice-president at the International Franchise Association
on Friday.
Instead, the IFA and other groups said they would focus their
efforts on Congress, which could write its own definition of
employer responsibility for contract workers into law or pass a
resolution blocking use of the new NLRB standard.
The Republican chairmen of congressional committees with oversight
of labor issues, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Rep. John
Kline of Minnesota, both pledged to introduce legislation that would
roll back the decision.
But any bill targeting Browning-Ferris would join other Republican
measures aimed at reversing NLRB decisions that have yet to become
law, and would likely face a veto as long as a Democrat is in the
Oval Office, said Walter Olson, a senior fellow who tracks labor law
at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“The politics are such that, even though Republicans have strong
majorities in both houses of Congress, the NLRB is considered enough
of a party-line issue that a bill would get a presidential veto,”
Olson said.
(Additional reporting by Daniel Wiessner, Robert Iafolla and Mari
Saito; Editing by Peter Henderson, Christian Plumb and Alan Crosby)
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