Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) proposed establishing employee involvement organizations (EIOs), collaborative groups for employees to meet with management and discuss labor conditions, as an alternative to traditional labor unions.
At a meeting by HR Policy’s Future Workplace Policy Council, Sen. Rubio urged member support for labor law reform and the bill, the Teamwork for Employees and Managers (TEAM) Act, pointing out “We have a broken labor relations system that is too adversarial.”
EIOs would not have the authority to negotiate, enter into, or amend a collective bargaining agreement, nor would they preclude the selection of a labor union representative. Adjudication of any TEAM Act violations would be left to the courts and not the NLRB.
Certain employers with an EIO would be required to allow employee board involvement: For employers with more than 3,000 employees and over $1 billion in gross annual revenue, employees of an EIO would have the ability to elect an employee representative that would be allowed to attend board meetings as a nonvoting member.
Large employers as defined under the bill would be required to develop “reasonable procedures” for employees joining or leaving the EIO, and the dissolution of an EIO. In the case of an EIO that has been certified for at least five years, dissolution of the EIO must be for a “reasonable business purpose” determined by a board of directors or “substantial equivalent.”
Outlook: The bill, which is modeled off a measure vetoed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, signals that some congressional Republicans are looking for alternatives to traditional labor unions under the nearly 90-year-old NLRA. The measure is certain to meet stiff opposition from Democrats, who support a labor law reform approach (typified by the PRO Act) of giving additional advantages to labor unions. HR Policy Association has not taken a position on the bill.