Unions, Immigrants, and Employment Law

The NLRB has signed an agreement with three countries - Mexico, Ecuador, and the Philippines - to teach immigrants how to unionize in the workplace.  This all started back in July 2013, when the NLRB and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed a national letter of Agreement in Washington D.C.  The letter references the National Labor Relations Act.  The NLRB says the Act "guarantees workers the right to join together, with or without a union, to improve their wages and working conditions, or to refrain from such activities.”

Also, according to a NLRB press release, the "NLRB and the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., as well as NLRB Regional Offices and Mexican Consulates nationwide, will cooperate to provide outreach, education, and training, and to develop best practices…"

About a month after the letter was signed with Mexico, additional agreements were signed with Ecuador and the Philippines.  The agreements state that the Number 1 goal is "to educate those who may not be aware of the Act, including those employees just entering the work force, by providing information designed to clearly inform [that nation’s] workers in the United States of America their rights under the Act and to develop ways of communicating such information (e.g., via print and electronic media, electronic assistance tools, mobile device applications, and links to the NLRB’s web site from the [country’s] web sites) to the … workers residing in the United States of America and their employers.”

Moreover, the NLRB has gone further by saying that the law's protections for unions protects illegal immigrants who may be members of unions.  What this means is that employers can be sanctioned for terminating illegal immigrants who may have engaged in union activism if the NLRB determines that the employee's activism was the real reason behind the termination.  This has caused more and more illegal immigrants to join unions, which in turn has caused some employers to be up in arms since it makes it much harder to terminate illegal immigrants.

What are your thoughts on this?  Ambuter Law wants to know.

If you have questions about your legal rights in the workplace, contact Ambuter Law for your free case evaluation.