Re:Apple Continues Efforts to Keep Retail Stores from Unioni...
by 35208654 on Sunday April 09, 2023 @07:02PM
(#35507315)
>There is nothing stopping companies from offering the same benefits to union employees that non-union employees are getting.
Sure, but it could be construed as promising benefits to employees to discourage their union support, which violates the NLRA [0] and indeed was cited by Merck, Sharp & Dohme Corp. in the dispute against them back in 2019 [1]. No company with a sane legal department would treat a counterparty differently than the contract stipulates, even if such a treatment could be considered 'preferential.' The legal risk is just too great.
[0]https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/human-resources/article/nation... [1]https://ogletree.com/insights/nlrb-explains-when-granting-be...
Re:Apple Continues Efforts to Keep Retail Stores from Unioni...
by bluefirebrand on Sunday April 09, 2023 @07:34PM
(#35507529)
> it could be construed as promising benefits to employees to discourage their union support, which violates the NLRA [0]
Ok, but there is nothing stopping them from approaching the union with the proposed new benefit.
It is not 100% automatically on the union to chase the company for literally everything. That only winds up being the case when the company is actively trying to weaken the union.
Any union that automatically rejects offered benefits from the company unless they are part of yearly negotiations or something is just a bad union.
Maybe many such bad unions exist. I think it's much more likely that companies are very aware that they can make your unions look bad by offering benefits to non-union employees and when asked they pretend to be helpless. Obviously it's the big mean union that is not working.