Latest Case: United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. National Labor Relations Board (Labor & Employment Law)

Religions Harm People

LESLIE C. GRIFFIN

UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Leslie C. Griffin points out ways in which religions harm people—manifested today as an insistence on exemptions to social COVID-19 distancing orders. Griffin argues that telling the truth about religion should not be viewed as a form of discrimination and endorses Katherine Stewart’s recent book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, which provides a detailed explanation of how the Religious Right has used its power to advance religion-based government in harmful ways.

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Conservative Authoritarianism Comes Out of the Shadows

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—comments on Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule’s essay “Beyond Originalism,” which Sarat argues brings conservative authoritarianism out of the shadows. Sarat describes Vermeule as a modern-day Machiavelli, offering advice to the governing class and laying out a theory of governance Vermeule calls “common-good constitutionalism” but which in reality elevates the “common good” above individual goods in a manner antithetical to freedom, pluralism, and democracy.

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United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. National Labor Relations Board

Dockets: 19-2033, 19-2168

Opinion Date: April 13, 2020

Judge: Suhrheinrich

Areas of Law: Labor & Employment Law

Under its collective bargaining agreement (CBA), Ford withholds union membership dues if an employee joins the union and signs a dues checkoff authorization. Resignation of membership does not extinguish the dues authorization; the CBA requires the employee to revoke a checkoff authorization within a specified window. To resign union membership, an employee must send a letter to the Union’s financial secretary, DePaoli, who then notifies Ford’s human resources manager to stop deducting dues from the employee’s paycheck. In February 2018, Stoner left DePaoli several voicemail messages. On March 5, DePaoli emailed the authorization form to Stoner. On March 9 Stoner sent a letter by certified mail stating that he was resigning from the Union and revoking his dues checkoff authorization. The Union received Stoner’s letter on March 12. DePaoli drafted a letter instructing Ford to stop deducting dues but is unsure whether he actually it. On March 19 Ford notified Stoner that it would continue deducting dues because it had not received a timely revocation. Ford deducted Stoner’s dues until mid-June. The Union reimbursed Stoner in part. The NLRB held that the Union’s failure to promptly process Stoner’s resignation violated the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 151–169. The Sixth Circuit granted enforcement, holding that the Union breached its duty of fair representation. The Union’s communications with Stoner evidenced “ill will” because of his decision to withdraw and support a finding that the Union’s conduct was in bad faith.