Just a note: it's illegal to fire someone for trying to organize a union. Not that it doesn't happen, but you often hear about how those people get their jobs reinstated, etc.
Firing someone because they were involved in union activity is extremely illegal. It happens only when companies are confident there won't be consequences.
Yeah, it’s not like non-unionized enterprises make it easy to fire workers. There’s evidence collection, meetings with HR, PIPs even when it’s at will.
Employers can't fire people for being in unions. That's illegal.
Either everyone should be protected, ie you can neither be fired for being in a union or for NOT being in a union, or nobody should be able to be fired for these things.
Correct, firing someone for trying to unionize is illegal. It is illegal to retaliate against workers for trying to unionize. It's not prohibited, to the best of my knowledge, to receive a contract from a union and say, "these term's aren't competitive, we'll find other workers". Otherwise that would effectively give unions unlimited power over companies.
If you have a pseudo-not law enshrined union and you try to go on strike it is legal for your employer to fire you.
That said, this is what unions originally started out as and they were still successful. If anything, the post-legal enshrinement of unions has coincided with their weakening.
I am curious if this period of tight labor markets will bring a new chapter in union history.
You can’t be fired for attempting to unionize even with at will employment. You can get fired for any reason as long as it’s not an illegal reason (like discrimination). Attempting to unionize or lobbying to improve worker conditions are generally protected. Of course the company is trying to get around this by claiming that they were terminated for other unrelated reasons (layoffs).
Yes, but there are still prohibited reasons for firing. Which labor organizing is one of; Damore charged that he was fired for organizing, the NLRB found that Google fired him for actions that fall outside of protected labor organizing.
So how did the bad employees get hired at your workplace and stay there before it unionized? Did the company hire 100% good apples before unionization and then suddenly change its mind and start hiring bad ones? Are you really going to assert that firing people is impossible in a union workplace? We both know that's not true.
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