Worker "Disloyalty" Leads to Discharge; Employer Disloyalty Is Good for Business

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Worker "Disloyalty" Leads to Discharge; Employer Disloyalty Is Good for Business

Monday, 19 August 2013 11:09
By Ellen Dannin and Ann C Hodges, Truthout | Opinion


The National Labor Relations Act protects the right of employees to join together to change working conditions. The law, as written by Congress, has no exception to this protection. But that doesn't mean the courts couldn't create exceptions big enough to drive a fleet of trucks through.

In fact, the blanket protection Congress put into the NLRA has been eaten full of holes by judicial moths. It's hard to decide which of the judicial amendments creates the most outrageous exception to the law's protection, but making employee disloyalty into a cardinal sin certainly deserves an award for chutzpah and judicial overreach.

The basic problem is that the word is so vague, it is easy to manipulate. If asked what employee "disloyalty" is, many people might say "stealing employer property." Take organizing a union, for example, or employees' complaints about working conditions. The NLRA actually says that organizing unions and participating in concerted activity to change working conditions are protected. But these are also behaviors that judges have put into the category of disloyalty in some cases.

According to the Supreme Court in the 1953 case of NLRB v. Local 1229, IBEW (Jefferson Standard), disloyal employees lose the protections of the National Labor Relations Act, even though the employees' actions are precisely what Congress intended to protect. As time has passed, the category called disloyal actions has expanded, making it ever easier for employers to deprive workers of their rights under the law. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18273-employee-disloyalty-leads-to-discharge-employer-disloyalty-is-good-for-business

[Scuba]

1. My Governer (sic) made a statement on the topic of worker rights ...

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2. Du rec. Nt

[brewens]

3. We are taught that we should always give two weeks notice when leaving a job.

I've known many situations where a new hire was told to start right away if they wanted the job. Some of that from major employers in my area. Several times when it was a guy I was supervising that left my crew with no notice. In a couple of cases I wouldn't have blamed them for bailing because staying would have meant working two more weeks at a considerably lower wage.

You can bet the bigger employer expects two week if you are to ever be considered for re-hiring. But the stick it to the little business when they hire their guys away.