WEBVTT - Secunda and Dube on Big Changes for Labor Board (Audio)

0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.920
<v Speaker 1>Unions are about to see a change in their fortunes.

0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.560
<v Speaker 1>The Obama administration has increased the leverage of unions and

0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:10.160
<v Speaker 1>the protection of workers. President Obama has often touted the

0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:13.320
<v Speaker 1>benefits of labor unions and said, thanks to their efforts,

0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.840
<v Speaker 1>many Americans can now depend on a forty yarrow work week,

0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:21.880
<v Speaker 1>overtime pay, and a minimum wage. All of that progress

0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.360
<v Speaker 1>is stamped with the union label. All of that progress

0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.640
<v Speaker 1>was fueled with a simple belief that our economy works

0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:32.800
<v Speaker 1>better when it works for everybody. And during Obama's second term,

0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.560
<v Speaker 1>the National Labor Relations Board has overturned precedents and issue

0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:41.879
<v Speaker 1>decisions opposing class action waivers and employment arbitration, increasing corporate

0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:46.919
<v Speaker 1>responsibilities for contractors and franchisees, getting graduate students the right

0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.600
<v Speaker 1>to unionize, among other things. But a rollback of those

0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.880
<v Speaker 1>rights is likely under President elect Trump. The NLRB now

0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.920
<v Speaker 1>has a two to one Democratic majority, with two empty

0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:02.240
<v Speaker 1>seats when Trump feels those Republicans will control the board.

0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.920
<v Speaker 1>Our guests are Paul seconda professor at Marquette University Law School,

0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.040
<v Speaker 1>and Bloomberg b An, a senior legal editor Larry Dubai.

0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:15.040
<v Speaker 1>Paul experts are predicting that a Republican controlled an l

0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.680
<v Speaker 1>r B will be rolling back Obama's labor initiatives. Do

0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.399
<v Speaker 1>you agree, and if so, what will be at the

0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.080
<v Speaker 1>top of their lists of targets? Hi June, Yeah, I

0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.080
<v Speaker 1>do agree. I do think that eventually, although there might

0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.720
<v Speaker 1>be some delays with the nomination process because obviously the

0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:37.560
<v Speaker 1>Democrats have to um confirm the appointments, there all eventually

0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.800
<v Speaker 1>will be three Republicans and do democrats. That's what you

0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:45.480
<v Speaker 1>have in a Republican administration, and historically there's been a

0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.960
<v Speaker 1>pendulum shift back and forth. This might be something that

0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.120
<v Speaker 1>people who are listening don't understand. But unlike courts, which

0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.240
<v Speaker 1>rely on precedent, the National Labor Relations Board has more

0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.120
<v Speaker 1>flexibility in changing labor relations law, and so I think

0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.400
<v Speaker 1>at the top of the agenda you might see a

0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.800
<v Speaker 1>pushback against graduate student unions. Uh. They just recently gave

0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:10.200
<v Speaker 1>graduate students the right to unionize in the Columbia University case. Uh.

0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.320
<v Speaker 1>You might see it harder to set up so called

0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:18.240
<v Speaker 1>micro union small unions under the specialty healthcare case. UH.

0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.760
<v Speaker 1>And you also might see, uh it harder to allege

0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.480
<v Speaker 1>joint employer stats, which of course has been a big

0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:29.200
<v Speaker 1>topic under under the Browning Ferris case. Larry It's Gregg store.

0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.079
<v Speaker 1>How much do we know or think we know about

0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.560
<v Speaker 1>what Donald Trump thinks of the n l r B.

0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.720
<v Speaker 1>On one hand, as a businessman, he's been uh, you know,

0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:40.160
<v Speaker 1>on the other side from the n l r B

0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.359
<v Speaker 1>and the other side from unions. On the other hand,

0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.520
<v Speaker 1>he has at least some points in the campaign called

0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:47.880
<v Speaker 1>for an increase in the minimum wage. What what do

0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:56.600
<v Speaker 1>we think? Very little about labor management relations and virtually

0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.280
<v Speaker 1>nothing about the n l r B. So it is

0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.320
<v Speaker 1>a little hard to tell where he'll be coming from

0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:09.720
<v Speaker 1>in uh in making nominations and appointments to the board. Uh.

0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.040
<v Speaker 1>But you know, no matter how far he is to

0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.280
<v Speaker 1>the right of center and selecting people to fill keep

0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:22.320
<v Speaker 1>slots of the at the labor Board, there's clearly going

0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:24.639
<v Speaker 1>to be a change, and some of it could come

0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.320
<v Speaker 1>very quickly. Some of it may take a little longer

0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:32.240
<v Speaker 1>to accomplish. Paul, how much was the system tilted in

0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:37.760
<v Speaker 1>the favor of workers and unions during Obama's administration? And

0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.960
<v Speaker 1>what do you think about a reversal slow or fast? Well,

0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.400
<v Speaker 1>I don't think it was tilted in favor of workers

0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.360
<v Speaker 1>at all. I mean, you're talking about a situation where

0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:50.200
<v Speaker 1>in the private sector, which is the only thing that

0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.160
<v Speaker 1>the LRB deals with, you only have six point seven

0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:57.320
<v Speaker 1>percent unionization, which is minuscule to historical levels of thirty

0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.160
<v Speaker 1>or thirty five percent. So I think what you all

0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.040
<v Speaker 1>during the Obama board, which went from two thousand and

0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.960
<v Speaker 1>nine to now two thousand and sixteen, was kind of

0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.120
<v Speaker 1>a pushback against the George W. Bush Board, which was

0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:11.840
<v Speaker 1>very management friendly. So this is what I was saying before.

0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.160
<v Speaker 1>This is just gonna be the pendulum shifting back and

0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.960
<v Speaker 1>making it harder for unions to organize to bargain first contracts,

0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.200
<v Speaker 1>and probably more difficult for them to take what we

0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.159
<v Speaker 1>call concerted action for mutual aid and protection to push

0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.359
<v Speaker 1>for their rights. I think that a lot of this,

0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:30.880
<v Speaker 1>as Larry was saying, is going to take some time,

0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:35.920
<v Speaker 1>because usually you need a management company to file some

0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.839
<v Speaker 1>kind of unfair labor practice or respond to an unfavor

0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.279
<v Speaker 1>unfair labor practice by a union, and then that case

0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.240
<v Speaker 1>has to work its way through various levels of the

0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:50.479
<v Speaker 1>administrative process. You start with the administrative law judge, then

0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.520
<v Speaker 1>it goes to the LRB. In Washington, d C. And

0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.240
<v Speaker 1>then even then parties have the right to appeal those

0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.240
<v Speaker 1>decisions to the various appellate courts around the country. So

0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.920
<v Speaker 1>this could be a fairly long process, one to even

0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:10.400
<v Speaker 1>three years. Larry, this is Mike Best. The the General

0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.359
<v Speaker 1>Council of the n l r B is also going

0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.400
<v Speaker 1>to be leaving, and the president elect will get a

0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.080
<v Speaker 1>chance to replace him. How significant is it to be

0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.799
<v Speaker 1>able to put his own person in that position, Well,

0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.800
<v Speaker 1>that really is. It's a key slot in the agency,

0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.159
<v Speaker 1>and it is one that sometimes can move with more

0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.279
<v Speaker 1>speed than the Board because the General Council has the

0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:38.280
<v Speaker 1>authority to issue or not issue unfair labor practice cases

0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:43.680
<v Speaker 1>in a variety of legal areas, and his decision not

0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:48.080
<v Speaker 1>to issue a complaint is really unreviewable in the courts.

0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:52.039
<v Speaker 1>So there's a lot of power in that job, and

0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:56.240
<v Speaker 1>he could make changes much more rapidly than the Board

0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.840
<v Speaker 1>could uh in a number of areas. For example, one

0:05:59.880 --> 0:06:05.279
<v Speaker 1>of the most I think disliked board actions the last

0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.680
<v Speaker 1>few years was the adoption of a rule that changed

0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:13.600
<v Speaker 1>the procedure in union election cases. Whether that's really had

0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:18.040
<v Speaker 1>an effect on employers and unions is still being debated.

0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.560
<v Speaker 1>But it's really put a lot of pressure and employers

0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.039
<v Speaker 1>to do things much more quickly in responding the union

0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:29.800
<v Speaker 1>organizing campaigns that was adopted through rulemaking. It will take

0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.360
<v Speaker 1>a long time to unwind it. But the General Council

0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:40.120
<v Speaker 1>does have the authority and the responsibility to guide regional offices. Paul,

0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.520
<v Speaker 1>we have about thirty seconds here. What about rules like

0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.800
<v Speaker 1>the new overtime rule that's set to double the salary threshold.

0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:53.440
<v Speaker 1>That can those be easily overturned by Trump administration? Well? No,

0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:55.599
<v Speaker 1>First of all, they don't come under the National Labor

0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.200
<v Speaker 1>Relations Board. They come under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.280
<v Speaker 1>So that's the wage in our division of the Artment

0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.800
<v Speaker 1>of Labor. And the problem for the Congressional Republicans is

0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.600
<v Speaker 1>that the Congressional Review Act, which would have allowed them

0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.920
<v Speaker 1>to overturn it with Trump's help, has run out basically now,

0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.200
<v Speaker 1>so they're going to have to pass legislation potentially or

0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.440
<v Speaker 1>new regulations, which is Larry points out, takes a long

0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.320
<v Speaker 1>time for for notice and common regulations to go through.

0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.640
<v Speaker 1>I would expect to compromise as instead of a complete

0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.200
<v Speaker 1>repeal on the overtime regulation. Thank you both. That's Paul Secunda,

0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.440
<v Speaker 1>professor at Marquette University Law School, and Bloomberg by an

0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.520
<v Speaker 1>A senior legal editor Larry Dubai coming up on Bloomberg Law.

0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.680
<v Speaker 1>Trump is set to appoint the ninth Supreme Court justice,

0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.600
<v Speaker 1>which will restore the court's conservative majority. How much of

0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.560
<v Speaker 1>a threat will that be to public sector unions? This

0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:44.480
<v Speaker 1>is Bloomberg