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Speaker 1: Unions are about to see a change in their fortunes.

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Speaker 1: The Obama administration has increased the leverage of unions and

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Speaker 1: the protection of workers. President Obama has often touted the

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Speaker 1: benefits of labor unions and said, thanks to their efforts,

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Speaker 1: many Americans can now depend on a forty yarrow work week,

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Speaker 1: overtime pay, and a minimum wage. All of that progress

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Speaker 1: is stamped with the union label. All of that progress

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Speaker 1: was fueled with a simple belief that our economy works

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Speaker 1: better when it works for everybody. And during Obama's second term,

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Speaker 1: the National Labor Relations Board has overturned precedents and issue

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Speaker 1: decisions opposing class action waivers and employment arbitration, increasing corporate

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Speaker 1: responsibilities for contractors and franchisees, getting graduate students the right

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Speaker 1: to unionize, among other things. But a rollback of those

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Speaker 1: rights is likely under President elect Trump. The NLRB now

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Speaker 1: has a two to one Democratic majority, with two empty

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Speaker 1: seats when Trump feels those Republicans will control the board.

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Speaker 1: Our guests are Paul seconda professor at Marquette University Law School,

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Speaker 1: and Bloomberg b An, a senior legal editor Larry Dubai.

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Speaker 1: Paul experts are predicting that a Republican controlled an l

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Speaker 1: r B will be rolling back Obama's labor initiatives. Do

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Speaker 1: you agree, and if so, what will be at the

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Speaker 1: top of their lists of targets? Hi June, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: do agree. I do think that eventually, although there might

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Speaker 1: be some delays with the nomination process because obviously the

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Speaker 1: Democrats have to um confirm the appointments, there all eventually

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Speaker 1: will be three Republicans and do democrats. That's what you

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Speaker 1: have in a Republican administration, and historically there's been a

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Speaker 1: pendulum shift back and forth. This might be something that

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Speaker 1: people who are listening don't understand. But unlike courts, which

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Speaker 1: rely on precedent, the National Labor Relations Board has more

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Speaker 1: flexibility in changing labor relations law, and so I think

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Speaker 1: at the top of the agenda you might see a

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Speaker 1: pushback against graduate student unions. Uh. They just recently gave

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Speaker 1: graduate students the right to unionize in the Columbia University case. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You might see it harder to set up so called

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Speaker 1: micro union small unions under the specialty healthcare case. UH.

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Speaker 1: And you also might see, uh it harder to allege

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Speaker 1: joint employer stats, which of course has been a big

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Speaker 1: topic under under the Browning Ferris case. Larry It's Gregg store.

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Speaker 1: How much do we know or think we know about

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Speaker 1: what Donald Trump thinks of the n l r B.

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Speaker 1: On one hand, as a businessman, he's been uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: on the other side from the n l r B

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Speaker 1: and the other side from unions. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: he has at least some points in the campaign called

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Speaker 1: for an increase in the minimum wage. What what do

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Speaker 1: we think? Very little about labor management relations and virtually

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Speaker 1: nothing about the n l r B. So it is

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Speaker 1: a little hard to tell where he'll be coming from

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Speaker 1: in uh in making nominations and appointments to the board. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But you know, no matter how far he is to

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Speaker 1: the right of center and selecting people to fill keep

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Speaker 1: slots of the at the labor Board, there's clearly going

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Speaker 1: to be a change, and some of it could come

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Speaker 1: very quickly. Some of it may take a little longer

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Speaker 1: to accomplish. Paul, how much was the system tilted in

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Speaker 1: the favor of workers and unions during Obama's administration? And

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Speaker 1: what do you think about a reversal slow or fast? Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't think it was tilted in favor of workers

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Speaker 1: at all. I mean, you're talking about a situation where

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Speaker 1: in the private sector, which is the only thing that

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Speaker 1: the LRB deals with, you only have six point seven

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Speaker 1: percent unionization, which is minuscule to historical levels of thirty

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Speaker 1: or thirty five percent. So I think what you all

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Speaker 1: during the Obama board, which went from two thousand and

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Speaker 1: nine to now two thousand and sixteen, was kind of

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Speaker 1: a pushback against the George W. Bush Board, which was

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Speaker 1: very management friendly. So this is what I was saying before.

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Speaker 1: This is just gonna be the pendulum shifting back and

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Speaker 1: making it harder for unions to organize to bargain first contracts,

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Speaker 1: and probably more difficult for them to take what we

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Speaker 1: call concerted action for mutual aid and protection to push

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Speaker 1: for their rights. I think that a lot of this,

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Speaker 1: as Larry was saying, is going to take some time,

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Speaker 1: because usually you need a management company to file some

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Speaker 1: kind of unfair labor practice or respond to an unfavor

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Speaker 1: unfair labor practice by a union, and then that case

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Speaker 1: has to work its way through various levels of the

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Speaker 1: administrative process. You start with the administrative law judge, then

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Speaker 1: it goes to the LRB. In Washington, d C. And

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Speaker 1: then even then parties have the right to appeal those

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Speaker 1: decisions to the various appellate courts around the country. So

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Speaker 1: this could be a fairly long process, one to even

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Speaker 1: three years. Larry, this is Mike Best. The the General

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Speaker 1: Council of the n l r B is also going

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Speaker 1: to be leaving, and the president elect will get a

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Speaker 1: chance to replace him. How significant is it to be

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Speaker 1: able to put his own person in that position, Well,

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Speaker 1: that really is. It's a key slot in the agency,

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Speaker 1: and it is one that sometimes can move with more

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Speaker 1: speed than the Board because the General Council has the

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Speaker 1: authority to issue or not issue unfair labor practice cases

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Speaker 1: in a variety of legal areas, and his decision not

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Speaker 1: to issue a complaint is really unreviewable in the courts.

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of power in that job, and

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Speaker 1: he could make changes much more rapidly than the Board

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Speaker 1: could uh in a number of areas. For example, one

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Speaker 1: of the most I think disliked board actions the last

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Speaker 1: few years was the adoption of a rule that changed

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Speaker 1: the procedure in union election cases. Whether that's really had

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Speaker 1: an effect on employers and unions is still being debated.

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Speaker 1: But it's really put a lot of pressure and employers

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Speaker 1: to do things much more quickly in responding the union

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Speaker 1: organizing campaigns that was adopted through rulemaking. It will take

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Speaker 1: a long time to unwind it. But the General Council

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Speaker 1: does have the authority and the responsibility to guide regional offices. Paul,

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Speaker 1: we have about thirty seconds here. What about rules like

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Speaker 1: the new overtime rule that's set to double the salary threshold.

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Speaker 1: That can those be easily overturned by Trump administration? Well? No,

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Speaker 1: First of all, they don't come under the National Labor

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Speaker 1: Relations Board. They come under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

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Speaker 1: So that's the wage in our division of the Artment

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Speaker 1: of Labor. And the problem for the Congressional Republicans is

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Speaker 1: that the Congressional Review Act, which would have allowed them

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Speaker 1: to overturn it with Trump's help, has run out basically now,

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Speaker 1: so they're going to have to pass legislation potentially or

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Speaker 1: new regulations, which is Larry points out, takes a long

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Speaker 1: time for for notice and common regulations to go through.

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Speaker 1: I would expect to compromise as instead of a complete

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Speaker 1: repeal on the overtime regulation. Thank you both. That's Paul Secunda,

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Speaker 1: professor at Marquette University Law School, and Bloomberg by an

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Speaker 1: A senior legal editor Larry Dubai coming up on Bloomberg Law.

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Speaker 1: Trump is set to appoint the ninth Supreme Court justice,

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Speaker 1: which will restore the court's conservative majority. How much of

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Speaker 1: a threat will that be to public sector unions? This

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Speaker 1: is Bloomberg