Labor News & Commentary February 4, 2024 NLRB accuses the Washington Post of violating labor law by refusing to bargain

[Omaha Steve]

https://onlabor.org/february-4-2024/

By Will Ebeler

Will Ebeler is a student at Harvard Law School.

In this weekend’s news and commentary, ridehail drivers and union leaders sue to block Massachusetts ballot initiative that would define ridehail drivers as independent contractors; the Washington Post analyzes 2023 data on child labor; and the NLRB accuses the Washington Post of violating labor law by refusing to bargain with its employees’ union over return to office.

On Thursday, a group of ridehail drivers and union leaders filed a lawsuit with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court asking it to block a set of state ballot initiatives that would define drivers as independent contractors. The proposals also would create some new benefits for the drivers. Under the Massachusetts Constitution, initiative petitions must focus only on related or mutually dependent issues. And according to Nikki Decter, the general counsel for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, the proposals in question would “impact hundreds and hundreds of sections of Massachusetts law,” including provisions regulating wage and hour, unemployment compensation, health insurance, accident liability insurance, and tax. For Ms. Decter, “these are unrelated legal schemes with different public policies.”

In 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court blocked an earlier version of the initiative from reaching that year’s state ballot. The Court found that the 2022 proposal failed the “related subjects” test because it combined two unrelated provisions: one that established drivers as independent contractors, and one that addressed company liability if a driver injures someone. The current proposals do not have the liability language, but as Ms. Decter noted, they would change several areas of state law. In 2022, the Court noted that it was a “complex, multifaceted question” whether “wide-ranging revisions of our independent contractor and employment laws are sufficiently similar or operationally related to form an integrated or coherent policy scheme that satisfies the related subjects requirement,” but ultimately declined to answer whether such changes would violate the state’s constitution because the company liability provision was sufficiently distinct to decide the case.

There are currently five proposals at issue in the lawsuit, any of which may be on the 2024 ballot. The organization supporting the proposals has clarified that it brought multiple proposals to protect against a court challenge and intends to put only one on the ballot.

FULL story at link above.