What’s Poppin’ in Washington D.C.
The Chatter in Washington D.C. 
I spent a good portion of this week attending labor update meetings in Washington D.C.. Here are
a few nuggets gleaned from those conversations, right after this short commercial for a new CUE Conference feature coming to Orlando in May.
Persuader Rule – three challenges have been filed in U.S. Circuit Court, but there is no guarantee that they will succeed. General consensus is that the rule creates an overly broad, very subjective definition of indirect persuade activity. It’s one of the few labor law provisions that provides for criminal penalties. CUE will be offering an update webinar for members on April 28th.
Convergence of Labor and Human Rights – Trade unions are using international human rights standards on an increasing basis, especially through ILO and OECD. The Steelworkers (USW) union filed a charge with OECD in February alleging mining conglomerate Grupo Mexico and its U.S. subsidiary, Asarco, of violating workers’ rights on both sides of the border.
NLRB General Counsel Richard Griffin released a new advice memo on March 22nd discussing cases that must be submitted to the Division of advice. The memo, GC 16-01, Mandatory Submissions to the Division of Advice mentions a few cases that would seem to hint at further changes could be forthcoming, including:
- the expansion of Purple Communications to employer electronic communications systems other than e-mail (Slack, Yammer and others);
- cases involving the employment status of workers in the on-demand economy;
- cases involving the question of whether the misclassification of employees as independent contractors violates Section 8(a)(1);
- cases where the following remedies might be appropriate: (1) access by non- employees to employer electronic communications systems, (2) access by nonemployees to non-work areas, and (3) providing a union with equal time to respond to captive audience speech
You should definitely go read the memorandum.