House Panel Adopts Pro-Union Bill

[Omaha Steve]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i06KkKhxyH91VFQ0rpi5PicSo9Og

By JESSE J. HOLLAND – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House panel moved Wednesday to make it harder for companies to classify workers as supervisors and thus exempt them from union protection.

With majority Democrats holding sway, the House Education and Labor Committee voted 26-20 to adopt a bill that would overturn a 2006 National Labor Relations Board decision covering a series of cases known as the Kentucky River cases.

The board had ruled in those cases that nurses who regularly run shifts at health care facilities should be considered supervisors and should be exempt from federal protections that cover union membership.

Opponents of the decision worry that it could be applied in other industries to workers who do little supervisory work but whose companies want to get them out of unions.

"A majority of members of the Bush NLRB voted to broaden the definition of supervisors in order to exempt more workers from the law's protection," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the committee's chairman.

Under the legislation, workers would have to spend the majority of their time doing supervisory duties to fit the classification. It would also eliminate the words "assign" and "responsibility to direct" from the supervisory duties in the National Labor Relations Act.

FULL story at link.