In U.S. – Unfair Labour Practices Charge Filings Up 16%, Union Petitions Remain Up in Fiscal Year 2023
Karma Global Rebuilds Compliances for Businesses with Robust Integration as Cost of Non Compliances Could Be More Than Cost of Compliances!!!!!
Karma Global one of the top 5 labour law consulting firms in the country, has recently hit upon yet another significant milestone in the journey of tying up with SUNDEEP PURI ASSOCIATES AND ADVOCATE, where both these Firms have formally joined hands together to collaborate and create a bigger alliance by scaling up its business on Pan India basis and Internationally to give greater reach of its services together, to its hundreds of clients all over.
The pandemic has changed the very way we do business, disrupting everything from global supply chains to financial markets which subsequently paved the way for change, new adaptations and rebuilding of business models with compliance being at the at the heart of this change.
In this context, the Enterprises too need a change in mind-set for those who want to remain on the right side of the law. “If the government can change, Corporate and Corporations need to be faster than the regulatory authorities in changing their mind-set in this automation game.
Only a few years back, we had compliance people to check and update on compliance conforming to the prevailing laws but now the nature of work is changing and we have the platforms that put all the dates, and laws in the form of a checklist for us, which comes as a lifesaver,”
At present, not all but most of the companies have woken up to the reality of this changing compliance landscape with the announcement of the new labour codes and with it there is a growing trend towards digitization to improve compliance and ensure that organizations are saved from the stiff penalties imposed on defaulters. “Every other day you have a different regulation change happening across numerous States, recent example with Chhattisgarh going in for old pension while other States are opting for new pension.
We have many vendors who are going towards digitalization to track these compliance and regulation changes,” and Karma Global is proud to have adopted the new AI technology and automation much before others could even think about it. With the changing notifications from the government, and requirement of reporting real-time data to authorities on month / quarterly /half yearly and annual basis, it is technology that has set new standards and disrupted the traditional methods and practices.
An increasing number of companies today are using a mix of internal and externally developed technology tools to keep pace with the fast changing compliance landscape and are standing with Karma Global for its state of the art “WeProcess” and “WeChecked” tools that offer advanced features, chat bots, machine learning, single up loading of all documents, and final evaluation together with remediation of noncompliance.
“The compliance scenario in India has gone so far that everything is interconnected. One failure somewhere is going to reflect in many records. We see the government rolling things out step by step to make sure that they have a more robust compliance mechanism and a compliance driven economy.
So in this regard, besides the business profile of Karma relating to labour laws, it will now focus whole time also on legal and para legal issues and matters with the collaboration of Sundeep Puri & Associates who are already into legal matters such as disputes, litigation, and court cases.
In U.S. – Unfair Labour Practices Charge Filings Up 16%, Union Petitions Remain Up in Fiscal Year 2023
U.S. – NLRB needs funding to effectively and efficiently complying and providing quality service to the public in conducting hearings and elections, investigating charges, settling and litigating meritorious cases, and obtaining full and prompt remedies for workers whose rights are violated.”
During the first six months of Fiscal Year 2023 (October 1–March 31), unfair labour practice (ULP) charges filed across the NLRB’s 48 field offices have increased 16%—from 8,275 to 9,592.
After a substantial increase last Fiscal Year, union representation petitions filed at the NLRB for the first six months of Fiscal Year 2023 continue to increase—up to 1,200 from 1,174. In total, 10,792 cases have been filed with the NLRB’s 48 field offices across the country, up 14% over the same period in Fiscal Year 2022.
This increase in filings continues last year’s surge in NLRB caseload.
In Fiscal Year 2022, 2,510 union representation petitions were filed—a 53% increase from the 1,638 petitions field in Fiscal Year 2021. This was the highest number of union representation petitions filed since Fiscal Year 2016. Unfair labour practice charges filed with NLRB Field Offices also increased 19% in Fiscal Year 2022, from 15,082 charges in Fiscal Year 2021 to 17,988 charges in Fiscal Year 2022.
Accounting for both ULP and representation petitions, total case intake at the Field Offices increased 23% in Fiscal Year 2022—from 16,720 cases in Fiscal Year 2021 to 20,498 cases in Fiscal Year 2022. This increase of 3,778 cases is the largest single-year increase since Fiscal Year 1976 and the largest percentage increase since Fiscal Year 1959. If the pace continues, Fiscal Year 2023 would have the second-largest percentage increase in NLRB filings since Fiscal Year 1959.
The increased case intake at Field Offices occurs as the Agency struggles with funding and staffing shortages. In December, Congress gave the NLRB a $25 million increase for Fiscal Year 2023, ending a hiring freeze, preventing furloughs, and allowing the NLRB to backfill some critical staff vacancies. However, the Agency remains understaffed after almost a decade of flat funding. In the past two decades, staffing in Field Offices has shrunk by 50%.
“I’m proud of NLRB Field and Headquarters staff for processing cases with professionalism and care, even as our caseload increases,” said NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. “The President’s Budget requests $376 million, which is much needed by the NLRB to effectively and efficiently comply with our Congressional mandate when providing quality service to the public in conducting hearings and elections, investigating charges, settling and litigating meritorious cases, and obtaining full and prompt remedies for workers whose rights are violated.”
What does this mean?
It means the recent union resurgence doesn’t show any signs of slowing anytime soon. Indeed, in addition to the NLRB charge and petition activity, strikes are on the rise and are at the highest clip we’ve seen in years. Plus, the current NLRB has been issuing union-friendly decisions with plans for more on the way. And Congress may step in and tilt the labour law landscape even more in organized labour’s favour with the PRO Act.
Conclusion: Companies must consider developing good labour relations and contingency plans!!
Established in 1935, the U.S. – National Labour Relations Board is an independent federal agency that protects employees from unfair labour practices and protects the right of private sector employees to join together, with or without a union, to improve wages, benefits and working conditions.
The NLRB conducts hundreds of workplace elections and investigates thousands of unfair labour practice charges each year.
All private sector employers should take note that union organizing and unfair labour practice filings remain extremely active and above any level we’ve seen in many years – all against a changing legal backdrop widely viewed as being favourable to unions. Companies should consider developing labour relations and contingency plans, or reviewing and updating those plans if they have them already. It’s a brave new world out there.
Karma Global works across a wide variety of industries, constantly looking for ways to offer new services and increase its global businesses.
In order to serve today’s technology to tech savvy clients and employees, Karma Global planned much ahead of its time by adapting to processes and systems to accommodate the quickly changing markets.
As Industry is continuing to get more and more competitive, Karma Global is bridging the gap, setting itself in tune with the latest technology trends in order to maintain a competitive advantage for all its over 400 domestic and global clients.
Automation and AI – Karma Global was among the first to improve efficiencies, the first in the vendor auditing process to fully automate and streamline any and all processes surrounding the auditing business of entity and vendors.
The chat bot and AI did a fabulous job of giving machine output, with a quicker pace, cheaper rate, and more accurate level of auditing and reporting.
This helped in elevating the roles of our Auditors to focus on complex tasks that require more brainpower or the human touch, leaving some of its task to the capabilities of the machine.
Incorporating chat bots in customer service allowed time for our expert representatives to spend time dealing with more complex issues which could ultimately add to the user experience and this is what set us apart from others.
Automating repetitive processes in our systems helped us free the valuable time of our expert staff allowing them to reach out to more clients.
For this purpose, Karma Global has both full time IT related staff and also indirect staff who are freelancing with us for enhancing our IT capabilities to the next level on the cloud platform.
Also, clients with issues such as litigation, disputes, closure, lockdown, retrenchment and layoffs could take the help of Karma Global in sorting this out since it now has a formidable partner by the name of Sundeep Puri & Associates to provide further solutions on such or any legal entanglements.
Proprietary blog of Karma Global Tech Management LLC
This blog has been collated and compiled by the internal staff of Karma Global with the knowledge and expertise that they possess, besides adaptation, illustration, derivation, transformation, collection as well as auto generation from various sources, for its monthly newsletter Issue 11 of May 2023 and in case of specific or general information or compliance updates for that matter, kindly reach out to the Marketing Team – Kush@karmamgmt.com / yashika@karmamgmt.com