It took more than seven months, but the NLRB has finally directed a union representation election at Creature Comforts Brewing Company. The NLRB will soon hold a secret ballot election over whether employees wish to be represented for purposes of collective bargaining by the Brewing Union of Georgia.
The bigger issue for Creature Comforts, however, is that even if it wins the election, the union will almost certainly use its four pending unfair labor practice charges against the employer to seek a bargaining order under the Board's recent Cemex decision (which the Board will apply retroactively).
In a press release, the EEOC announced the filing of a series of sexual harassment lawsuits against Las Vegas hospitality employers.
[The l]awsuits … allege sexual harassment towards employees by owners, supervisors and management, co-workers, and/or customers. The four lawsuits included allegations raised by workers throughout the hospitality industry, from housekeepers in hotels to waitstaff in both high-end and casual restaurants and bars. Allegations included the attempted rape of a young housekeeper, sexual assault, sexual solicitations, sexual comments, inappropriate touching, stalking, and other inappropriate behaviors.
These lawsuits are consistent with agency's enforcement priorities as outlined in its just-released Strategic Plan, which includes targeting education and enforcement effots to protect vulnerable communities.
As the weather warms up around the country and spring quickly transitions to summer, festival season will begin … including my personal favorite, the beer festival.
Beer festivals, however, raise a few specific wage and hour traps for participating breweries. Here's the 411.
Bar Vegan in an affiliate of Slutty Vegan, a plant-based restaurant chain that finds itself in the crosshairs of a wage-and-hour collective action lawsuit challenging how it pays its tipped employees. The issue focuses on the bar claiming a tip credit and paying its tipped bartenders less than the statutory minimum wage. That practice, in and of itself, is legal. What makes it allegedly illegal in this case, however, is how Bar Vegan distributes tips among its staff, and more specifically that it permits non-tipped employees to participate in a tip pool with its tipped bartenders.
That's an FLSA no-no.
The employees of Creature Comforts Brewing Co. recently held a rally to announce their intent to form a labor union. They also announced the formation of the Brewing Union of Georgia, an independent union created by the brewery's employees with the stated goal of spreading their movement across their state. Despite the union's "independence," it has received assistance and guidance from assistance from the United Campus Workers of Georgia and the Workers Center at the Economic Justice Coalition.
This is HUGE news for the craft beer industry.
Work for a brewery. GM and owner … informed everyone that we needed to sign a contract essentially stating that if ANY employee was found to be discussing wages, they would be terminated immediately.… As of last week, GM let everyone know that any employee who hasn't signed the paper will be looked at as a voluntary resignation. I should probably add that, of course, we have no union.
This is what we labor and employment lawyers call … what's the term … ILLEGAL.
I've written before about BrewDog (here and here), the multinational Scottish craft brewery accused by hundreds of former employees of systemic mistreatment through its sexist and misogynist work environment. The brewery's founder and CEO, James Watt, stands at the center of much of controversy and most point to him as the root cause of most of the allegation.
Earlier this week, Watt appeared as a guest on The Diary of CEO podcast. During the interview, Watt blamed his pattern of mistreatment of employees him possibly being autistic.
Charlotte Cook says her name and details of conversations about her time at BrewDog—which focused on workplace safety, problems with human resources, and the circumstances under which she left the company—were provided by [HR consultant] Wiser to BrewDog without her knowledge or consent.
