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Strategies for Defending Against Unfair Labor Practice Charges in Employment Law

Jun 23, 2023 | 0 comments

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Jun 23, 2023 | Essays | 0 comments

Introduction

Employment law is the collection of laws and rules that regulate relationships between employers and employees. Employment laws say when an employer can hire employees and when the employees can work. The laws cover what an employer must pay the employee for their work.

Unfair labor practices are illegal actions taken by an employer and/or a union under the federal labor laws and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Under the NLRA act, employees are protected against unfair treatment by their employees and unions that interfere with their rights. Therefore in case, these actions are committed by either unions or employers, employees have the right to file charges with the NLRB within six months of the commission of the act. In this scenario, employees have filed charges against my company (Delphi Golf Inc.). This essay is going to analyze the process and steps that the company will take to defend this action, the different activities that could have been done by the employer and the union, and lastly identify the one reliable.

 

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Employer’s Response

Once the company has been issued with the official charge form, it will hire a labor counsel who will file a notice of appearance. In this scenario there is a collective bargaining agreement between the union and the employer; therefore the company’s attorney should consider asking the boarding agent to defer through an examination of the agreement’s grievance and arbitration procedure. Concurrently the Delphi Golf Inc. should conduct an internal investigation so that it can settle on ways of responding to the charges. The investigation process will include an examination of available documents and interrogation of witnesses who are mostly employees (Marcus et al., 2018).

During the internal investigations, the company should avoid additional interference charges by steering carefully when asking employees questions concerning the union during the interviews. Once the investigation end, the company will submit a position statement responding to the employees’ allegations. This should be a detailed report that shows the company’s understanding of the law. To have a strong defense, in this case, the company should not produce its evidence and witnesses for statements during the investigation stage. This is because there is a possibility that a complaint will be issued for a hearing of this case. By doing this, the company will have prevented the impeachment of the witness during the trial by using his/her statements.

Valid claims by the Union Employees

Though the company is preparing itself for the defense to this action, the union employees have legitimate complaints against Delphi Golf Inc. this is according to the NLRA which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees that include encouraging or discouraging membership in a labor union. The charge form states that the employees covered had not designated the union as their representative. On the other hand, the act of the company not employing three non-members of the union shows the violation of the labor laws. The union has also violated the law by causing the employer to discriminate the prospective employees by forcefully encouraging union membership or risk not being employed. According to section 8(b)(1)(A), the union will have violated the labor laws by threatening to take action against the company if the three non-union prospective employees are hired. In section 8(b)(1)(B) the union is prohibited from interfering with the company’s choice for the collective bargaining agreement (Guerin, 2018 and NLRA, 2014).

What Could Have Been Done Differently

What the company would have done differently was to involve the employees during the collective bargaining with the union. The employees would have been given a chance by their employer to play a role in setting the group’s agenda and its purpose, also to be involved in the decision-making process. Union membership should not have been made mandatory but rather an individual choice to avoid violation of section 7 on the employees’ rights. The union should not have coerced an employer into agreeing with the union’s instructions on the hiring policy (Buttrick and Bahl, 2009). It is evident from the labor laws that the Company and the Union are reliable.

References

Buttrick, S., & Bahl, M. (2009). Union Unfair Labor Practices and Rules Every Non-Union Employer Should Know. Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/labor_law/meetings/2010/annualconference/095.authcheckdam.pdf

Guerin, L. (2018). Unfair Labor Practices. Retrieved from https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/unfair-labor-practices.html

Marcus, J., Bressler, Amery, & Ross. (2018). How may an employer defend against an unfair labor practice charge? | FAQs | Tools | XpertHR.com. Retrieved from https://www.xperthr.com/faq/how-may-an-employer-defend-against-an-unfair-labor-practice-charge/6338/

NLRA. (2014). National Labor Relations Act. Retrieved from https://legcounsel.house.gov/Comps/National%20Labor%20Relations%20Act.pdf

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