The following is a daily digest of workplace-related news and views from around the country.

Fracas At Five Guys: Chain’s employees beating drunken customer ‘simply unacceptable’

In what appears to be a huge PR embarrassment for the popular hanburger chain Five Guys, at least three female employees of one of the chain’s franchisees in Miami were caught on video beating an (allegedly) drunk female patron.

The actions displayed in this video are simply unacceptable. We are working with the franchise owner to do a full investigation and ensure appropriate disciplinary actions are taken.

One must wonder whether, under the National Labor Relations Board’s new “joint employer” standards, if the franchisee and Five Guys’ corporate will be liable when the inevitable lawsuit is filed.

It is also unknown whether these Five Guys’ employees will be participating in the #FightFor15 protests on November 10th, or not.

Read more here.

UAW wants to divide and conquer VW, or it will withdraw from Chattanooga election

More than 18 months after its humiliating defeat trying to unionize hourly production and maintenance worker at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, TN, the United Auto Workers has filed a petition with the NLRB to hold an election involving only the plant’s maintenance employees.

Volkswagen, on the other hand—while maintaining neutrality on how its employees vote— is arguing to the NLRB that, if there is to be an election, it should include both production and maintenance employees.

At the NLRB hearing, according Chloé Morrison, a reporter with Nooga.com, the UAW fought against including production employees, stating that the union withdraw its election petition if production employees were included in the vote.

Read more here

Why Union-Free Companies Should Be Very Concerned About This Particular Website…

Over the last three decades of dealing with union issues, it is difficult to count the number of times a business owner or human resources generalist commented that they did not realize the National Labor Relations Act—the federal law that regulates labor relations for most private-sector employers—applies to non-unionized, as well as unionized businesses.

More importantly, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last five years, there have been dozens of cases coming from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) aimed specifically at an expansion of workplace rights for non-union employees under what is called “protected concerted activity.”

[….]

A few weeks ago, during a panel discussion in Denver about online organizing and social media, I made mention of Coworker.org on a slide.

However, due to time constraints, we did not have a lot of time to go a deeper discussion about the ramifications of the site with the audience.

However, if you don’t know about Coworker.org, you should learn about it quickly.

In sum, Coworker.org is a website designed for non-union employees to exercise their NLRA-protected rights for “change” in primarily non-union workplaces.

The site is essentially organizing the unorganized, with a caveat, it is without a union (for now).

Read more here.

In other workplace related news…

• NY business groups unify to fight $15 minimum wage…
• NLRB provides employers a roadmap to a legally compliant off-duty access policy…
• ICYMI: Why UPS retirees are bracing for possible pension cuts,,,

Cross-posted from WorkPlaceReport.com

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