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Season 3, Episode 67

NLRB General Counsel pushes to make captive audience meetings illegal

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America's Work Force Union Podcast AWF

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Joyce Goldstein

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joycegoldsteinlaw.com

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Joyce Goldstein, a Labor and Employee Benefits Lawyer at Joyce Goldstein & Associates, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast and addressed the push by National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo to make captive audience meetings illegal.

Abruzzo requested the NLRB to consider the change in a recent memo.

If the decision comes to pass, it would be a monumental change and provide a tremendous benefit to the labor movement, Goldstein said. Captive audience speeches, in which management can feed employees anti-union propaganda in meetings the employees are required to attend, have been permitted by the NLRB since 1948.

In her memo, Abruzzo wrote that she considers captive audience speeches to not only be meetings employees are required to attend, but also the times an employer corners an employee and feeds them anti-union speech, Goldstein said. The memo classified such talks as inherently threatening, she added.

Goldstein expects the decision to be challenged, as there are a number of issues that need to be ironed out. One example is whether or not a meeting is considered to be a captive audience meeting if employees are paid for their attendance, she said.

Goldstein also discussed the recent successful vote to unionize by Amazon workers at a Staten Island fullment center. Amazon is expected to file an objection based on inappropriate and unfair bias of the NLRB, she said. The objection is on the grounds that the NLRB pursued unfair labor charges against Amazon for firing a worker who attempted to unionize at the same time the election was taking place, she explained.

Listen to the entire episode to learn more about these topics:

America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

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