‘Supervisor’ Bill Likely To Face Battle In Senate
In another step toward reversing labor law rulings by judicial bodies, the House is on its way to passing a bill that would limit the number of employees who could be classified as supervisors.
October 10, 2007
‘Supervisor’ Bill Likely To Face Battle In Senate
In another step toward reversing labor law rulings by judicial bodies, the
House is on its way to passing a bill that would limit the number of employees
who could be classified as supervisors.
The one-page measure, which passed
the House Education and Labor Committee on a party-line vote last month, would
strike the words “assign” and “responsibility to direct” from the definition of
supervisor in the National Labor Relations Act. It also would insert language
that states an employee must be in a supervisory role for at least 50 percent of
his or her time at work.
Although it hasn’t come up for a vote in the full
House, it is almost certain to be approved. Like other employment law measures,
it faces a more perilous path in the Senate, where the Republican minority can
more easily block legislation.
The bill is a response by the Democratic
congressional majorities to a National Labor Relations Board decision last fall
in a collection of cases known as “Kentucky River.” The board said that charge
nurses are supervisors because they assign work, direct other employees and
exercise independent judgment.
Organized labor rejected the ruling, saying the
nurses weren’t part of management because they didn’t have supervisory authority
such as hiring, firing or setting pay. They also objected to the NLRB finding
that an employee could be designated as a supervisor if he or she spent as
little as 10 percent to 15 percent of work time in that capacity.
Labor
groups claim that workers such as nurses, construction foremen and team leaders
in manufacturing could be denied the right to organize because they’re
classified as management under the NLRB approach.
An employment lawyer
asserts the effect isn’t that dramatic. “It was not a decision that brought a
tremendous change in the law,” says Andrew Rolfes of Cozen O’Connor in
Phila¬delphia. “It just brought some clarity to the definitions that are in the
law.” Republicans say that labor and Democrats are overreacting. The bill
“represents a significant departure from 60 years of law,” says Rep. John Kline,
R-Minnesota.
The Democratic author of the measure says that it is narrowly
drawn to overturn the NLRB decision. “What this bill does is restore the
decades-old meaning of those laws,” says Rep. Robert Andrews, D-New
Jersey.
He also dismisses Republican charges that Democrats are trying to pay
back labor for helping the party take over the House and Senate. “Fairness is
good for business and it’s good for labor,” Andrews says. Senate Republicans
may cry foul when employment law battles resume there.
Sen. Edward Kennedy,
D-Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Committee, indicated he would like to skip Senate hearings and take the House
NLRB bill directly to the floor for a vote—as Democrats did with a measure
earlier this year that would make it easier for employees to form a
union.
Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to score political points
rather than formulate policy by truncating the legislative process.
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