Portside

Academics decry algorithmic monitoring of workers and call for stronger standards – but U.S. unions have been slow to act.

Some say the NLRB’s forthcoming rulings could even serve as a backdoor for enacting provisions included in Democrats’ Protecting the Right to Organize Act.

The Amazon organizing drive has drawn attention to just how much the deck is stacked against workers and unions. The Pro Act would provide a much-needed update to labor law after decades of rising inequality and an erosion of collective bargaining.

It’s a problem that starts with the U.S. Congress: Since 1980, as the workforce has grown by 50 percent, Congress has kept the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s funding essentially flat — with budget increases eaten away by inflation.

"Workers increasingly serve businesses that do not officially 'employ' the worker — a distinction that hampers organizing, erodes labor standards and dilutes accountability," said Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel for the National Employment Law Project, which advocates on behalf of low-wage workers. A recent Federal Reserve study showed that nearly 7.5 million people who are working part time — contract workers included — would rather have full-time jobs.

(Moderators Note. The following article is from the US Chamber of Commerce, a group that is not a friend of workers or unions.) As this blog noted nearly a year ago, the use of worker centers as front groups for unions has been a key strategy among certain labor organizations to circumvent federal laws that would otherwise restrict their behavior, so it is a good sign that Congress has started to take more notice.

The decision on Friday by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a 2011 rule that required employers to post, physically or electronically, a notice describing workers' rights under the National Labor Relations Act. It was the second time in as many months that a federal appeals court has rejected the rule, after the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals said last month the poster rule violated employers' free speech rights.