As part of the Committee on Practice and Procedure under the NLRA (Southern Region (Region VIII) of the ABA’s Labor and Employment Section), Mike Okun helped organize the annual discussion between the labor bar and the NLRB Region 11’s Director, attorneys, and staff.   At today’s meeting at the NLRB office in Winston-Salem, we had the good fortune to be joined by John E. Higgins, Jr, currently the agency’s Deputy General Counsel, who filled us in on developments at the national level, including the NLRB’s work with only two board members and the potential effects of EFCA.

Categories: News of the Firm Tags: ABA, EFCA, Labor and Employment, Michael Okun, NLRB, Union

Senator Arlen Specter has released more details on the EFCA compromise he has been working on, and also declared his confidence that he had 60 votes for the bill.  Instead of the majority sign-up provision, the bill would provide for quicker union elections with some sort of equal-time requirements.  And, the binding arbitration would be adjusted to use baseball-style arbitration, i.e. the arbitrator has to pick one of the final offers of the parties.

Categories: Legislative Action Tags: Congress, EFCA, Labor, Labor and Employment, Union

Here’s the latest update on the Senate negotiations on EFCA.  As expected, it comes down to figuring out what the moderate Democrats in the Senate will support.  For more information of the various parts of the bill, see Narendra’s paper on the NLRA and EFCA.

Categories: Legislative Action Tags: Congress, EFCA, Labor and Employment, Narendra Ghosh, Union

Narendra Ghosh spoke at the North Carolina Bar Association’s 2009 Fundamentals of Employment Law CLE, which was held in Greensboro.  He was part of a duo presenting an overview of the National Labor Relations Act and the possible changes to it from the long-pending Employee Free Choice Act.  Along with Tom Farr, he presented a paper entitled A Brief Introduction to Union and Employee Activities Under the NLRA and Proposed Changes Under the Employee Free Choice Act.

Summary: The National Labor Relations Act (the “Act” or the “NLRA”) guarantees the right of workers to organize and to bargain collectively with their employers, or to refrain from such activity. To enable employees to exercise these rights and to prevent labor disputes, the Act places certain limits on the activities of both employers and labor organizations.  The text that follows is an introduction to pre-certification union and employee activities under the Act, which is intended for new practitioners. In addition, this paper describes changes to the Act that have been proposed in the Employee Free Choice Act, which is currently pending in Congress. Whether changes need to be made to the Act, and what forms they should take, are hotly debated questions, and this paper aims to illuminate the contours of the debate.

Categories: General News Tags: Articles, EFCA, Labor and Employment, Narendra Ghosh, NCBA, NLRA, Presentation, Union