On March 15, 2023, the Chicago City Council overwhelmingly voted to approve an ordinance requiring labor peace agreements between workers and Chicago-funded nonprofit organizations providing critical public health and social...more
4/6/2023
/ City of Chicago ,
Contractors ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Illinois ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Relations ,
Local Ordinance ,
Public Health Service (PHS) ,
Social Services ,
Tax Exempt Entities ,
Unions
In Tesla Inc., the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) recently reversed a 2019 decision in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that gave employers leeway when adopting neutral non-discriminatory dress codes. Instead, the Board applied...more
9/7/2022
/ Dress Codes ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Tesla ,
Union Insignia ,
Union Organizers ,
Unions ,
Wal-Mart
On March 19, 2020, the National Labor Relations Board (“Board)” suspended all representation elections, including mail ballot elections, until April 3, 2020. This week, the Board announced it will not extend its temporary...more
Earlier this month, the Seventh Circuit joined the consensus across the country, concluding in two separate cases that unions that collected fair share fees prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, 585,...more
11/26/2019
/ Constitutional Challenges ,
Defense Strategies ,
Fair Share Contribution ,
First Amendment ,
Good Faith ,
Janus v AFSCME ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Non-Union ,
Payroll Deductions ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Restitution ,
SCOTUS ,
Union Dues ,
Unions
The National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) is inviting input “to aid the Board in reconsidering the standards for determining whether profane outbursts and offensive statements of a racial or sexual nature, made in the...more
The seemingly never-ending debate over private sector college- and university-student employment status continues. On Friday, September 20, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced its intent to propose a rule...more
9/30/2019
/ Collective Bargaining ,
Colleges ,
Comment Period ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Graduate Students ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NPRM ,
Proposed Rules ,
Student Employees ,
Students ,
Teaching Assistants ,
Unions ,
Universities
On August 9, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued the first of its planned series of highly anticipated proposed amendments to its union election procedures. These proposed amendments follow the NLRB’s...more
8/15/2019
/ Blocking Statutes ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Construction Industry ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Labor Regulations ,
Labor Relations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Proposed Amendments ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Union Elections ,
Union Representatives ,
Unions
As we previously reported, in July 2015, the United States Supreme Court decided to hear an appeal of a case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit regarding the legality of “fair share” fees for public...more
10/3/2017
/ Certiorari ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Fair Share Contribution ,
First Amendment ,
Friedrichs v CA Teachers Association ,
Janus v AFSCME ,
Opt-Outs ,
Public Employees ,
Public Sector Unions ,
SCOTUS ,
Unions
In what will come as no surprise to even the most casual labor law observer, last Friday an Acting Regional Director for the National Labor Relations Board created a new inroad for unions to organize undergraduate resident...more
In its 2014 landmark decision in Pacific Lutheran University (PLU), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) held that it will assert jurisdiction over faculty at religious colleges and universities unless the college or...more
4/12/2017
/ Collective Bargaining ,
Faculty ,
First Amendment ,
Jurisdiction ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Pacific Lutheran University ,
Religious Institutions ,
Religious Schools ,
Unions ,
Universities
Recently, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois held that the Village of Lincolnshire’s municipal ordinance regulating union activities was invalid under federal law. The ruling is a defeat for...more
As we previously reported, in July 2015, the United States Supreme Court decided to hear an appeal of a case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit regarding the legality of “fair share” fees for public...more
A federal district court has ruled that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) preempts a county government from enacting a right-to-work ordinance applicable only to that county. The decision from the U.S. District Court...more
Last week, Governor Bruce Rauner broke off contract negotiations with AFSCME Council 31, the union that represents nearly 40,000 state workers, and will seek a declaration from the Illinois Labor Relations Board (“the Board”)...more
As we reported earlier, on December 15, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) adopted a Final Rule that modified its processing of representation cases. See, 79 Fed. Reg. at 74308. As part of this rule, the NLRB...more
Earlier this week, Governor Rauner and AFSCME Council 31, the union representing almost 40,000 state workers, agreed to temporarily extend the terms of the 2012-2015 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and prohibit a strike...more
On June 30th, the United State Supreme Court granted certiorari in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, and will consider whether public sector agency shop arrangements, also known as “fair share” contractual...more
Earlier this month, the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation that drastically changes the collective bargaining landscape for State of Illinois employees. Senate Bill 1229 requires the use of interest arbitration...more
On Friday, a St. Clair County court issued an order requiring all State of Illinois agencies to immediately reinstate the payment of fair share fees, deducted from non-union member State employees’ paychecks, to labor unions...more
Last week, three State of Illinois employees filed a motion to intervene in Governor Rauner’s lawsuit challenging fair share fees, which is currently pending in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois. Meanwhile,...more
Over the past several weeks, Illinois’ largest labor unions and Attorney General Lisa Madigan took steps to defend “fair share” fees against Governor Rauner’s Executive Order suspending the collection of those fees, and his...more
Yesterday, Governor Bruce Rauner signed Executive Order 15-13 eliminating “fair share” fees paid by state employees who choose not to join a union. At the same time, Rauner filed a complaint in federal court seeking a...more
The Illinois Appellate Court for the Fourth District recently found that a school district did not engage in any unfair labor practices when it subcontracted student transportation services to a third-party vendor and...more
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court issued its anxiously anticipated decision in Harris v. Quinn, a case brought by Illinois home health aides challenging the requirement in a collective bargaining agreement that they...more