Definition of "unfair Labor Practice"
The NLRB has the authority to investigate and remedy unfair labor practices, which are defined in Section 8 of the Act. In broad terms, the NLRB makes it unlawful for an employer to:
- interfere with two or more employees acting in concert to protect rights provided for in the Act, whether or not a union exists
- to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of a labor organization
- to discriminate against employees for engaging in concerted or union activities or refraining from them
- to discriminate against an employee for filing charges with the NLRB or taking part in any NLRB proceedings
- to refuse to bargain with the union that is the lawful representative of its employees
The Act similarly bars unions from:
- restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of their rights or an employer in the choice of its bargaining representative
- causing an employer to discriminate against an employee
- refusing to bargain with the employer of the employees it represents
- engaging in certain types of secondary boycotts
- requiring excessive dues
- engaging in featherbedding (requiring an employer to pay for unneeded workers)
- picketing for recognition for more than thirty days without petitioning for an election
- entering into "hot cargo" agreements (refusing to handle goods from an anti-union employer)
- striking or picketing a health care establishment without giving the required notice
Applying this general language to the real world requires, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, "distinctions more nice than obvious". The substantive law applied by the NLRB is described elsewhere under specific headings devoted to particular topics.
Not every unfair act amounts to an unfair labor practice; as an example, failing to pay an individual worker overtime pay for hours worked in excess of forty hours in a week might be a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, but it is unlikely to amount to an unfair labor practice as well. Similarly, a violation of a collective bargaining agreement, standing alone, may not constitute an unfair labor practice unless the employer has not only violated the contract but repudiated all or part of it.
Read more about this topic: Unfair Labor Practice
Famous quotes containing the words definition of, definition, unfair, labor and/or practice:
“Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)
“Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in
principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic
definition of truth is doomed to failure equally.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Indubitably, Magick is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgement and practice than in any other branch of physics.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)