Los Angeles Labor Union Lawyer

UNION MEMBERSHIP PRESENTS UNIQUE PROBLEMS IN EMPLOYMENT LAW

Labor union membership is on a decline. Lately, labor experts have pondered that labor unions need to go beyond serving the blue collar workforce and begin to serve the increasing numbers of those in the United States service sector including computer workers, mortgage loan brokers, internet specialists, and a variety of jobs that did not exist forty years ago.

Los Angeles Labor Union Membership Problems

In the Employment Lawyers Group’s representation of wronged employees, union membership presents unique challenges. Union members can usually sue for forms of discrimination such as age discrimination, disability discrimination, Family Medical Leave Action Violations, pregnancy discrimination, race discrimination, and sexual harassment, but they cannot necessarily sue because they are whistle blowers who seek to utilize the California state law of wrongful termination. Union members’ ability to sue for what lawyers call wage and hour violations for unpaid overtime is a question you must consult an experienced employment lawyer about. The answer whether a union member can sue for meal and rest break violations can also be a complicated question that requires thorough analysis by a qualified employment lawyer. A union members’ ability to sue for breach of contract means a lawsuit about the breach of union terms and that is not done in the court system. It is also important for a lawyer to evaluate what employment rights are written about in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to determine what a union members’ employment rights are.

Other union issues include what a union hearing is not. In a disability discrimination case I tried in 2013 the decision maker in the union hearing was the same manager who initiated the hearing and wanted to fire the bus driver. Union hearings do not involve the formality of court, nor the right to present a case to a jury or judge who is a lawyer.

Professors of sociology at the Universities of Maryland and Washington, Meredith Kleykamp and Jake Rosenfeld recently wrote that had union membership rates for women remained at the late 1970s level, racial and wage inequality among women in private sector jobs today would be reduced by as much as 30%. They also wrote that during the early 1970s 40% of all black men in the private sector were union members. By the end of the 1970s 25% of all black women in the private sector belonged to a union. They believe that if union membership remained at the pace of the 1970s, weekly wages would now be $50 a week higher. The trade-off for union members if there is ever an employment termination or other adverse employment situation is their right to the same civil remedies for labor law is different than non-union workers.

This week the AFL-CIO meets in Los Angeles to examine ways to stop the decline in union membership. We will continue to monitor these developments in labor. If unions are able to form for Wal-Mart which is absorbing many positions formerly held by the grocery unions, tech people become unionized, and unions spread into white collar professions there could be a turning of the tide.

Please feel free to contact our firm to determine what your rights may be in the civil court system if you are in a labor union.