Controversial NLRB Ruling Could End Contract Employment As We Know It - Forbes

 

The National Labor Relations Board, as expected, determined that Browning-Ferris Industries is a “joint employer” obligated to negotiate with the Teamsters union over  workers supplied by a contract staffing firm within one of its recycling plants.

In so doing, the board’s Democratic majority reversed several decades of practice where companies had to exercise “direct and immediate” control over workers with a new regime in which regulators will examine each case for signs a company has the potential to affect pay and working conditions. It will have a large impact on how franchisers like McDonald MCD +0.00% do business, since they can potentially be held liable for hiring and firing decisions by any of their thousands of individual franchisees. Even routine business decisions, like whether to fire a contractor or how to structure operations, will now be examined in light of how they affect union organizing efforts.

“If this goes into effect then the franchiser has to step in and have a standard for hiring, human resources, payroll, everything,” said Jania Bailey, a board member of the International Franchise Association and chief executive of FranNet, a consulting firm that matches franchisees and franchisors. “It basically nullifies this independent business model.”

The decision by the board’s three Democratic appointees was fiercely disputed by the Republican minority, who said it reverses several prior decisions that established a clear standard for whether a company is an employer, all of which had been approved by powerful federal courts of appeal.

Under the board’s new standard — which the majority, to be clear, maintains is the old standard, revived — the test is whether a company has the potential to exercise control over a worker’s wages and working conditions, regardless of whether that control is used. That potential can be based on the economic power in the relationship, which unions argue can limit the ability of a contractor to raise wages, as well as modern technology allowing franchisers to monitor the productivity and output of employees at franchisees.

The majority board members, led by Chairman Mark Gaston Pierce, a former union lawyer, said they they were merely returning to the standard established under a 1982 decision by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, also involving Browning-Ferris, which the board subsequently tightened “without explanation.” The additional requirements overturned today “significantly and unjustifiably narrow the circumstances where a joint-employment relationship can be found” and leave the board “increasingly out of step with changing economic circumstances,” the majority said. Key among the requirements was that a joint employer exercise “direct and immediate” control over workers.

Controversial NLRB Ruling Could End Contract Employment As We Know It - Forbes

Illinois fires head football coach Tim Beckman

August 28, 2015

Illinois fires head football coach Tim Beckman

The University of Illinois has fired head football coach Tim Beckman, one week before the start of the 2015 football season.

BREAKING NEWS ALERT

Illinois Lottery to winners: We'll pay you when the state has a budget

Lottery officials say that because lawmakers have yet to pass a budget, the comptroller's office does not have legal authority to release lottery winnings of more than $25,000 and winners are getting sent an IOU instead.

Suburban Democrats key in Rauner vs. unions battle - DailyHerald.com

 

Mike Riopell

Lawmakers have set up a potential showdown with Gov. Bruce Rauner over a proposal he's called a "direct frontal assault on the taxpayers of Illinois."

Suburban Democrats could be key to who wins.

If they don't all vote with the Democratic majority to override Rauner's veto of a plan that would outlaw a strike by the state's largest employee union for the next four years, the new Republican governor could have a hope for victory.

Democratic state Rep. Jack Franks of Marengo says he's still trying to decide which way he'll go. And he says he's not the only undecided person.

"I'm still weighing my options on it," Franks said. "I'm looking at the whole thing."

The whole thing is legislation that would outlaw a strike or lockout by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union for the next four years and eventually send stalled talks to an arbitrator. Rauner and the union are deadlocked, having missed their deadline to come up with a new contract by a couple months now.

Both sides see the legislation as critically important and have fought hard for it.

The count

To override Rauner's veto, House Democrats would need each of the 71 members to both show up in Springfield next week and vote against Rauner, unless one or two union-friendly Republican lawmakers decide to break with the governor. That's why Franks and any other undecideds are so important to both sides.

Most other suburban Democrats voted for the plan its first time through, but Franks didn't vote either way. Still, he says, he's not the only Democrat out there who is open to convincing by either side.

Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan has told reporters there's enough support to override Rauner, and when asked if he'd call an override vote said: "Why wouldn't I?"

A vote could come as early as Wednesday.

No hints

Franks won't hint at which way he's leaning, giving some credence to both sides. For one, he agrees with Rauner that AFSCME has too much political power.

On the other hand, he says he doesn't believe an override would cost the state as much money as Rauner claims it will.

This issue is somewhat separate from the ongoing dispute between Republicans and Democrats on a state budget that is almost two months overdue but has been largely implemented anyway by court orders.

Stay tuned.

Suburban Democrats key in Rauner vs. unions battle - DailyHerald.com

New Report Highlights Koch Brothers' Role In Hurricane Katrina Damage

 

Groups backed by the conservative billionaires helped to worsen the impact of the storm and hinder the recovery process.

Marina FangAssociate Politics Editor, The Huffington Post

Posted: 08/27/2015 06:19 PM EDT | Edited: 08/27/2015 06:26 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- A new report from the Democratic opposition research group American Bridge's Bridge Project describes the way Charles and David Koch, the influential conservative billionaires, put their vast resources into actions that exacerbated the impact of Hurricane Katrina and stalled the Gulf Coast’s recovery.

The report, released Thursday, highlights the Koch brothers' influence on the region before and after the storm, including constructing and operating pipelines that destroyed wetlands south of New Orleans and attempting to obstruct legislation that would have aided the recovery.

The report describes a federal class-action lawsuit claiming that Koch Pipeline Company and other major oil companies were “partly responsible for the destruction of 1 million acres of marshlands and also for millions more acres of dying marshland.” The destruction of the marshlands eliminated New Orleans' "natural protection against hurricane winds and storm surges,” according to the lawsuit. The case was later dismissed because a judge deemed it “ambitious.”

Mario Tama via Getty Images

The Bridge Project also details an unsuccessful Koch-backed legislative effort to oppose a bill that was intended to promote recovery by limiting premiums for flood insurance. The Homeowners Flood Insurance Affordability Act sought to place a limit on rate increases for people at higher risk of being affected by hurricanes and other damaging storms.

The Koch-funded conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity and other conservative organizations signed a letter in February 2014 urging GOP lawmakers to oppose government intervention in the flood insurance market by voting against the bill. (The legislation had the support of then-Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), whom AFP supported in his successful 2014 Senate campaign.)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

As the Bridge Project report points out, AFP defended itself by touting its support for an amendment to the bill that would have slowed down the insurance rate increases. However, the conservative groups sent the letter opposing the bill a month after the amendment had been shelved.

Though some of the findings in the report have been documented previously, it highlights the Kochs' extensive political and economic influence. The findings add to the long list of instances of the brothers' network of conservative groups attempting to obstruct environmental legislation. Koch-backed groups have advocated against state-level proposals that incentivize companies to invest in renewable energy. On the business side, their companies have shut down oil refineries and factories in several states, which many critics have alleged were efforts to avoid incurring environmental cleanup costs.

New Report Highlights Koch Brothers' Role In Hurricane Katrina Damage

Science Crusader, Penn Stater John Mashey Leads Seminar On Campus - Onward State

 

By Ben Berkman on August 28, 2015 at 6:05 am News

Distinguished computer scientist, entrepreneur, climate crusader, and Penn Stater John Mashey delivered a special seminar through the Earth Systems Science Center Thursday at the Walker Building. There, he articulately and engagingly connected invisible dots between think tanks, climate change deniers, tobacco companies, the media, and even universities.

Mashey, whose seminar was titled “The Machinery of Climate Anti-Science: Science Bypass and Confusion Tactics Inherited from Big Tobacco,” attended Penn State from 1964-1973 and graduated with a BS in math, and an MS and PhD in Computer Science. Born and raised on a small farm in Western Pennsylvania, Mashey’s career quickly took off. He spent a decade at Bell Labs in New Jersey, developing computer software programming that bore his name. He soon moved to Silicon Valley, working on supercomputers. Through that work, he termed the now popular and widely implied concept of “big data.”

A heart attack quickly slowed Mashey’s career — “my doctors told me to get out of the fast lane, or you’ll stop driving,” he said — and soon developed a second career, one as an investigative blogger that studies climate science and highlights “anti-science” and energy issues, the basis for Thursday’s seminar.

Mashey began his presentation by defining the difference between anti-scientists and pseudo-scientists, both of whom he’s worked diligently to discredit in his career.

If science is a brick wall, anti-scientists, he said, “are folks who think if they can find one flaw in science anywhere, the whole thing falls down.” Pseudo-scientists, meanwhile, draw conclusions based on invalid scientific principals. It’s these approaches that Mashey defined as science bypass: an attempt to throw out all accepted research, while always calling for more research to be conducted. This ploy allows anti- and pseudo-scientists to reject any current scientific findings, be it for climate change, the harms of tobacco (Mashey’s two specialties), or anything else.

“Who can argue with more research,” he hypothetically posited.

Mashey, who now enjoys semi-retirement writing for science-positive websites including the climate change-oriented DeSmogBlog and Skeptical Inquirer, demonstrated how the Koch brothers and tobacco, backed by pseudo-scientific think tanks, essentially fueled the creation of the Tea Party. The significant financial contributions from the incredibly wealthy Koch brothers created misinformation that, Mashey said, “convinces people to support agendas against their own best interest.”

But this flow of misinformation and mysterious funding doesn’t stop at political lobbyists and large corporations, he said, but instead is also found at universities. A center at George Mason University is entangled with the Heartland Institute, a think tank that is in turn supported by the Koch Brothers.

Perhaps his most famous example that demonstrated his unique skill in combining science and journalism was his scathing 250-page critique of the Wegman Report, which worked to validate criticism of new evidence towards climate change. This more or less rebuttal to a rebuttal was featured in USA Today and marked a low moment for the pseudo-scientists that Mashey discredits.

“They don’t like me very much,” he said with a spry chuckle.

Science Crusader, Penn Stater John Mashey Leads Seminar On Campus - Onward State