This post is a part of the Power at Work Blog's "Partners in Power" series, which features articles republished in partnership with other labor publications. Click here to read more Partners in Power pieces on the Power At Work Blog.
At the Power At Work Blog, one of our mission-focused tasks is to lift up great work by others discussing, analyzing, and assessing issues that are important to workers, worker power, and unions. That's why we publish The Weekly Download each Friday (subscribe to get it emailed to your inbox). That's also why we recently produced a blogcast/podcast to give Amy Livingston and Sarah Lazare an opportunity to discuss their important article about unions and transgender workers.
This post is another part of that larger effort. While scanning the internet, we came across a set of brand new short videos produced by the Legal Department of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) that explains several recent developments in labor and employment law. These IAMAW Legal Spotlight videos are designed for the IAMAW's members and the general public, so you don't have to be a lawyer or have a background in these particular areas of law to understand them. Also, we appreciate the motivation behind the effort: working Americans should be able to understand how courts, Congress, and the NLRB are deciding issues that are very important to their work lives and their ability to build power to improve them.
*** Before we get to the videos, here's a special offer for you. If you have created something --- a video, audio, photographic, written, or other piece of media --- that is relevant to worker power, collective action, and unions AND you would like us to share it in The Weekly Download or in a blog post like this one, please send it to the Power At Work Blog at [email protected]. We won't make any promises, but we always welcome new opportunities to life up pro-worker-power discourse. ***
With the IAMAW's permission (h/t DeLane Adams), we are pleased to share these terrific and valuable videos with you.
In this first video, IAMAW Associate General Counsel Connie Vallas explains the National Labor Relations Board's amendments to its election rules and why those changes will make it easier to organize. She also discusses the Board's recent decision in Cemex Construction Materials, which should create substantial disincentives to employers committing unfair labor practices during union organizing campaigns.
In the second video, IAMAW Associate General Counsel William Haller explains the Supreme Court's decision in Glacier Northwest v. Teamsters, which poses a meaningful risk to workers' right to strike. This is an important case that I also analyzed in this post and we discussed with a panel of labor law professors in this blogcast.
In the third video, IAMAW Associate General Counsel Laura Ewan discusses a recent Supreme Court case called Groff v. DeJoy that changes the standard for determining when employers must accommodate workers religious practices.
In the fourth video, Associate General Counsel Ewan is back with a discussion of a recent NLRB decision in a case called Lion Elastomers that broadened the kind of conduct in which workers can engage while remaining protected by the National Labor Relations Act.
In this fifth and final video, IAMAW General Counsel Carla Siegel discusses the recently enacted federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, an important new civil rights law.
