New York City Mayor’s Labor Day gift to unions:
On Monday, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order to create the Mayor’s Office of Worker Power, which will be aimed toward helping private sector workers unionize. The office will be led by Tony Perlstein, a long-time organizer for the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) who also worked with the Teamsters and United Farm Workers. Perlstein will report to a familiar face, ex-Biden Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, who’s now the NYC Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice. Su insists that this office won’t directly organize workers but instead will be facilitating connections between workers and unions.
Regardless of whether what Su is saying is true, Big Apple employers haven’t had great news lately on the union lobbying front. After all, NYC City Council’s bill Int. No. 757 is moving through legislative channels after aggressive Teamsters efforts. If that bill passes, Mamdani made it clear that he’ll sign it, and the city’s minimum wage will reach $30 by 2030. The city’s small business leaders believe that this massive wage jump will create an unsustainable barrier to entrepreneurship in NYC.
Washington’s longest hotel strike could influence others:
Also on Labor Day, at least 117 Seattle Embassy Suites hotel workers received media attention for their continuing strike that began on June 18. UNITE HERE and the hotel have deadlocked on several issues including wages and staffing levels, and activists from several other unions (including United Food and Commercial Workers, Service Employees International Union, and Seattle Education Association) joined the holiday picket line.
One news report claims that a long-term Embassy Suites client has pulled its business in Seattle to the tune of $18,500 per week.
UNITE HERE is also threatening to make this strike contagious in Chicago, where the union wants to put thousands of workers on strike. The union claims to represent 15,000 workers at over 40 Windy City locations and has posted a list of hotels where around 7,000 union members are reportedly working under expired contracts.
The DOL’s Lori Chavez-DeRemer report hit the airwaves:
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling took over his role after an awkward era involving tabloid reports about his predecessor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Those accusations–about travel fraud, drinking alcohol during work hours, and an “‘inappropriate’ relationship with a subordinate”–led to a months-long investigation that has produced a 38-page report from the DOL’s Office of Inspector General.
Naturally, the report includes findings on the above subjects and more:
- Page 15 shows time-stamped security screenshots of a male staffer entering Chavez-DeRemer’s Washington, D.C. residence and leaving 14 hours later wearing the same outfit as when he entered.
- Page 18 details suspicions from Chavez-DeRemer and Chief of Staff Jihun Han, who both believed “that they could no longer trust Sonderling and his staff and suspected them of contributing to the media reporting.” That led to Han questioning “the necessity of providing [security] protection for Sonderling.” Oh boy.
The Supreme Court shut down another employer request on bargaining:
We recently told you about Las Vegas’ Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa’s bid to pause a Gissel bargaining order issued by the D.C. Circuit. This week, the Supreme Court declined that request, so Red Rock must negotiate with the Culinary Union while awaiting potential Supreme Court review of its case. Previously, the Supreme Court denied a similar request in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC v. NLRB after the Ninth Circuit affirmed a Gissel order issued by the Board.
Both of those cases involved courts sidestepping the Board’s Cemex standard in favor of enforcing Gissel orders, and it’s too soon to say how those cases will end for these employers.
In the broader picture, it’s safe to say that the Abruzzo Board’s aggressive Cemex decision will fall when a relevant case reaches the NLRB. General Counsel Crystal Carey’s most recent guidance memo made clear that she wants to see that happen, and James Macy’s confirmation as the third GOP vote gave the Board the necessary votes to overturn that precedent.
Meanwhile, the Board’s backlog got an update:
Although that Carey memo specifically listed the Board decisions that the GC wants to be overturned, the NLRB’s massive backlog remains her top priority. To that end, the agency has appointed five new administrative law judges (David Goldman, Lisa Dunn, Stephanie Cotilla Eitzen, Zuzana Murarova, and Steven Wyllie) to process those aged cases.
NLRB Chair James Murphy declared that these new ALJs’ “experience and commitment to fair and impartial adjudication will strengthen the Board’s ability to address our case backlog and ensure that cases are resolved efficiently and consistent with the National Labor Relations Act.” These new hires bring the total number of NLRB judges to 30, as opposed to the 36 working for the agency in 2023. Still, let the backlog-clearing times roll!
