No Dating Co-Workers!

Next time you ask that co-worker out to dinner you have more to be nervous about than being turned down: you might lose your job. The National Labor Relations Board has given employers the green light to prohibit employees from "fraternizing" with co-workers. In Guardsmark, LCC, the Board upheld an ALJ's ruling that a private security guard company may lawfully prohibit its employees from "fraterniz[ing] ... or becom[ing] overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees." According to Board Members Battista, Liebman, and Shaumber, such a rule "is reasonably understood as prohibiting personal entanglements, rather than activity protected by the [National Labor Relations] Act [and] is designed 'to provide safeguards so that security will not be compromised by interpersonal relationships....'" That last part might make for some interesting scenarios (at least for those of us with active imaginations), but there is something disturbing about an employer's ability to interfere with its employees' lives outside of work.

It remains to be seen what will happen upon appeal (one would think that the union representing these employees would take this to the Court of Appeals), but this decision is yet another example of how far some will go to diminish fundamental Section 7 and Constitutional rights.

Labor in the News

Though hotel workers in San Francisco are still fighting for a contract, there's good news in Los Angeles where hotel workers a tentative agreement with the L.A. Hotel Employers Council.

The debate over the future of the labor movement continues. SEIU's executive board has given the Union's leadership the green light to disaffiliate with the AFL-CIO while the AFL-CIO's Executive Committee has approved major changes, including an increase in the resources it devotes to organizing and political mobilization.

It appears that the collective bargaining rollbacks and "pay-for-performance" personnel system recently mandated for Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense are spreading to other federal agencies. See this week's Federal Times.

LCC Lawyers, including 2 of Peer & Gan's own, walk the picket line in San Francisco. 

LCC Lawyers Support San Francisco Hotel Workers

Hotel workers in San Francisco have been battling with a multi-employer group to obtain collective bargaining agreements with continued comprehensive health care, fair wage increases, fully funded pensions and card check neutrality. Here's the latest from UNITE-HERE's website:

On Tuesday, May 31, UNITE HERE Local 2 and the Multi-Employer Group (MEG)
representing fourteen San Francisco hotels headed back to the bargaining table
for the first time in three and a half months. Local 2 members had been waiting
for a response to their latest contract offer made to the hotels on February
14th.

The hotels are feeling the heat as numerous groups such as GLAAD and the American Federation of Teachers pull their conferences and other events from hotels involved in the dispute. Several weeks ago, a large group of labor lawyers from the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee ("LCC") joined Local 2 members on the picket line outside the Westin St. Francis hotel. The lawyers were in town for the LCC's conference, which took place at the San Francisco Marriott. This is the very same hotel LCC lawyers picketed several years ago as part of another contract dispute, and the Marriott workers went on to win a contract. Not that we're taking all the credit for victory here, but let's hope the efforts of "the mighty, mighty lawyers" help those currently fighting for a decent way of life.