Labor & Employment Law

CASES THE EMPLOYER FAILED TO HIRE AN EMPLOYEE AS A RESULT OF NOT JOINING A UNION

By Michael Goldstein, Esq.

Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities, for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection. 29 U.S.C.A. §157. As we read the section it means that an employer may not require an applicant for work, as a condition to accepting him for employment, to join or to resign from a union, nor insert in the contract of employment any other discriminatory term that encourages or discourages membership in a labor organization, excepting only that, if the facts stated in the proviso exist, the employer may require membership in the labor organization which has been legally chosen to represent his employees.

Unions and employers are not allowed to require employee who objects to union membership to articulate his or her ideological objection and then to determine whether employee’s objection is “ideological” or “political” enough to be constitutionally protected. Conley v. Massachusetts Bay Transp. Authority, 539 N.E.2d 1024 (1989).

Full post as published by Massachusetts Employment Law Blog on April 03, 2008 (boomark / email).