Do we need labor unions anymore?

When I challenge the continued viability of labor unions and the lack of benefits they offer to or confer upon 21st century employees, this is the refrain I often hear.

Minimum wage ✔️
Overtime ✔️
OSHA ✔️  
Child labor protections ✔️
Anti-discrimination laws ✔️ 
ERISA ✔️

None of those laws, I'm told, would exist without the historic efforts put forth by labor unions. 

You know what? That statement is 100 percent correct. Labor unions played a huge role in the passage of the FLSA, OSHA, ERISA, and Title VII, each of which granted a wealth of new rights and protections to employees.

They also help render labor unions irrelevant. 

How do you handle employees talking about “replacement theory” at work?

The "Great Replacement" is a conspiracy theory that certain leftist political forces are bringing non-whites into the United States and other Western countries to "replace" white voters to achieve their political agenda. It is often tied to anti-immigration groups and white supremacists. It's also the motivation that caused Payton Gendron to shoot 13 Black individuals in a Buffalo supermarket this past weekend, killing 10.

It's also way more mainstream than you might think or want to believe, with certain mainstream media outlets substituting its traditional racist and antisemitic underpinnings, including the use of terms of "white genocide" and "Jewish cabal," with a more politically focused narrative. Indeed, one in three Americans believe in "replacement theory."

How do you handle it if an employee complains that co-workers are promoting the Great Replacement? 

Employers, your awful stereotypes in job ads aren’t cute or clever, they’re offensive and illegal

"Meet H&N's newest assistant brewer," the Instagram post began. How nice, a brewery advertising its female-friendly work environment. 

"She always has a smile on her face and never talks back!"

Uh oh! That took quite the turn, and not for the better.

Don’t ask employees about their problems after a union comes knocking

"I'm here to listen."

It's an innocuous enough statement for management to make to employees. What could possibly go wrong when a manager tells employees she's there to "listen"?

If a union representation petition is pending, the answer is a lot.

WIRTW #625: the “war on women” edition

How do you support your female employees amid times of great uncertainty about the continued viability of their reproductive rights and body autonomy? 

On the heels on Justice Alito's leaked majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Levi Strauss & Co. published on its website the following statement.

As the pandemic has shown so clearly, public health issues are workplace issues. Business leaders are responsible for protecting the health and well-being of our employees, and that includes protecting reproductive rights and abortion access.…

Under our current benefits plan, Levi Strauss & Co. employees are eligible for reimbursement for healthcare-related travel expenses for services not available in their home state, including those related to reproductive health care and abortion. There is also a process in place through which employees who are not in our benefits plan, including part-time hourly workers, can seek reimbursement for travel costs incurred under the same circumstances.

Given what is at stake, business leaders need to make their voices heard and act to protect the health and well-being of our employees. That means protecting reproductive rights.

Levi Strauss joins other notable employers such as Amazon, Citigroup, Salesforce, and Yelp in covering employees' abortion-related travel expenses. I say bravo! 

Those are employers' responses. What about the response of a 15-year-old this opinion directly impacts? How does she feel about the Supreme Court taking away her reproductive rights and body autonomy? Listen to this week's episode of The Norah and Dad Show to find out. It's available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, through your browser, and everywhere else you find podcasts.

(For more about the legal issues raised by the leaked opinion, I highly recommend Marc Alifanz's and Kate Bischoff's deep dive on the most recent episode of their Hostile Work Environment podcast.)

Here's what else I read and listened to this past week that I think you should be, too

Let’s play spot the issue

Let's see if you can spot the employment law issue from this story, which I've borrowed from our local police blotter.

On April 26, the owner of a bar came to the police station regarding an ex-employee who stole his daughter's AirPods.

The stealing incident, which took place in February, led the owner to track the pods to a house that just so happened to be the home of the ex-employee's sister.

That's when the owner told the employee he was withholding his last check to cover the cost of the AirPods.

The man needed a police report to document the incident and provide the state justification of docking the ex-employee $250 from his last paycheck.

What do you think? 

Your front-line employees are not security guards

A video made the rounds yesterday on Twitter of a mass of Best Buy employees foiling a shoplifting attempt with a stellar zone defense.

This Best Buy has a better defense than your favorite NFL team pic.twitter.com/pBlilzeAj9

— NFL Memes (@NFL_Memes) May 9, 2022