Speaker 1: Unions are about to see a change in their fortunes.
Speaker 1: The Obama administration has increased the leverage of unions and
Speaker 1: the protection of workers. President Obama has often touted the
Speaker 1: benefits of labor unions and said, thanks to their efforts,
Speaker 1: many Americans can now depend on a forty yarrow work week,
Speaker 1: overtime pay, and a minimum wage. All of that progress
Speaker 1: is stamped with the union label. All of that progress
Speaker 1: was fueled with a simple belief that our economy works
Speaker 1: better when it works for everybody. And during Obama's second term,
Speaker 1: the National Labor Relations Board has overturned precedents and issue
Speaker 1: decisions opposing class action waivers and employment arbitration, increasing corporate
Speaker 1: responsibilities for contractors and franchisees, getting graduate students the right
Speaker 1: to unionize, among other things. But a rollback of those
Speaker 1: rights is likely under President elect Trump. The NLRB now
Speaker 1: has a two to one Democratic majority, with two empty
Speaker 1: seats when Trump feels those Republicans will control the board.
Speaker 1: Our guests are Paul seconda professor at Marquette University Law School,
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg b An, a senior legal editor Larry Dubai.
Speaker 1: Paul experts are predicting that a Republican controlled an l
Speaker 1: r B will be rolling back Obama's labor initiatives. Do
Speaker 1: you agree, and if so, what will be at the
Speaker 1: top of their lists of targets? Hi June, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: do agree. I do think that eventually, although there might
Speaker 1: be some delays with the nomination process because obviously the
Speaker 1: Democrats have to um confirm the appointments, there all eventually
Speaker 1: will be three Republicans and do democrats. That's what you
Speaker 1: have in a Republican administration, and historically there's been a
Speaker 1: pendulum shift back and forth. This might be something that
Speaker 1: people who are listening don't understand. But unlike courts, which
Speaker 1: rely on precedent, the National Labor Relations Board has more
Speaker 1: flexibility in changing labor relations law, and so I think
Speaker 1: at the top of the agenda you might see a
Speaker 1: pushback against graduate student unions. Uh. They just recently gave
Speaker 1: graduate students the right to unionize in the Columbia University case. Uh.
Speaker 1: You might see it harder to set up so called
Speaker 1: micro union small unions under the specialty healthcare case. UH.
Speaker 1: And you also might see, uh it harder to allege
Speaker 1: joint employer stats, which of course has been a big
Speaker 1: topic under under the Browning Ferris case. Larry It's Gregg store.
Speaker 1: How much do we know or think we know about
Speaker 1: what Donald Trump thinks of the n l r B.
Speaker 1: On one hand, as a businessman, he's been uh, you know,
Speaker 1: on the other side from the n l r B
Speaker 1: and the other side from unions. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: he has at least some points in the campaign called
Speaker 1: for an increase in the minimum wage. What what do
Speaker 1: we think? Very little about labor management relations and virtually
Speaker 1: nothing about the n l r B. So it is
Speaker 1: a little hard to tell where he'll be coming from
Speaker 1: in uh in making nominations and appointments to the board. Uh.
Speaker 1: But you know, no matter how far he is to
Speaker 1: the right of center and selecting people to fill keep
Speaker 1: slots of the at the labor Board, there's clearly going
Speaker 1: to be a change, and some of it could come
Speaker 1: very quickly. Some of it may take a little longer
Speaker 1: to accomplish. Paul, how much was the system tilted in
Speaker 1: the favor of workers and unions during Obama's administration? And
Speaker 1: what do you think about a reversal slow or fast? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was tilted in favor of workers
Speaker 1: at all. I mean, you're talking about a situation where
Speaker 1: in the private sector, which is the only thing that
Speaker 1: the LRB deals with, you only have six point seven
Speaker 1: percent unionization, which is minuscule to historical levels of thirty
Speaker 1: or thirty five percent. So I think what you all
Speaker 1: during the Obama board, which went from two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine to now two thousand and sixteen, was kind of
Speaker 1: a pushback against the George W. Bush Board, which was
Speaker 1: very management friendly. So this is what I was saying before.
Speaker 1: This is just gonna be the pendulum shifting back and
Speaker 1: making it harder for unions to organize to bargain first contracts,
Speaker 1: and probably more difficult for them to take what we
Speaker 1: call concerted action for mutual aid and protection to push
Speaker 1: for their rights. I think that a lot of this,
Speaker 1: as Larry was saying, is going to take some time,
Speaker 1: because usually you need a management company to file some
Speaker 1: kind of unfair labor practice or respond to an unfavor
Speaker 1: unfair labor practice by a union, and then that case
Speaker 1: has to work its way through various levels of the
Speaker 1: administrative process. You start with the administrative law judge, then
Speaker 1: it goes to the LRB. In Washington, d C. And
Speaker 1: then even then parties have the right to appeal those
Speaker 1: decisions to the various appellate courts around the country. So
Speaker 1: this could be a fairly long process, one to even
Speaker 1: three years. Larry, this is Mike Best. The the General
Speaker 1: Council of the n l r B is also going
Speaker 1: to be leaving, and the president elect will get a
Speaker 1: chance to replace him. How significant is it to be
Speaker 1: able to put his own person in that position, Well,
Speaker 1: that really is. It's a key slot in the agency,
Speaker 1: and it is one that sometimes can move with more
Speaker 1: speed than the Board because the General Council has the
Speaker 1: authority to issue or not issue unfair labor practice cases
Speaker 1: in a variety of legal areas, and his decision not
Speaker 1: to issue a complaint is really unreviewable in the courts.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of power in that job, and
Speaker 1: he could make changes much more rapidly than the Board
Speaker 1: could uh in a number of areas. For example, one
Speaker 1: of the most I think disliked board actions the last
Speaker 1: few years was the adoption of a rule that changed
Speaker 1: the procedure in union election cases. Whether that's really had
Speaker 1: an effect on employers and unions is still being debated.
Speaker 1: But it's really put a lot of pressure and employers
Speaker 1: to do things much more quickly in responding the union
Speaker 1: organizing campaigns that was adopted through rulemaking. It will take
Speaker 1: a long time to unwind it. But the General Council
Speaker 1: does have the authority and the responsibility to guide regional offices. Paul,
Speaker 1: we have about thirty seconds here. What about rules like
Speaker 1: the new overtime rule that's set to double the salary threshold.
Speaker 1: That can those be easily overturned by Trump administration? Well? No,
Speaker 1: First of all, they don't come under the National Labor
Speaker 1: Relations Board. They come under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Speaker 1: So that's the wage in our division of the Artment
Speaker 1: of Labor. And the problem for the Congressional Republicans is
Speaker 1: that the Congressional Review Act, which would have allowed them
Speaker 1: to overturn it with Trump's help, has run out basically now,
Speaker 1: so they're going to have to pass legislation potentially or
Speaker 1: new regulations, which is Larry points out, takes a long
Speaker 1: time for for notice and common regulations to go through.
Speaker 1: I would expect to compromise as instead of a complete
Speaker 1: repeal on the overtime regulation. Thank you both. That's Paul Secunda,
Speaker 1: professor at Marquette University Law School, and Bloomberg by an
Speaker 1: A senior legal editor Larry Dubai coming up on Bloomberg Law.
Speaker 1: Trump is set to appoint the ninth Supreme Court justice,
Speaker 1: which will restore the court's conservative majority. How much of
Speaker 1: a threat will that be to public sector unions? This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg