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News and Updates
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News and Updates 〰️
Private Sector
In Kerwin v. Trinity Health Grand Haven Hospital, the Sixth Circuit made it significantly harder for workers to get quick legal relief when their employer breaks labor laws. Trinity Health Grand Haven Hospital illegally stopped recognizing its workers’ union and kept refusing to bargain even after employees voted 89 to 66 to keep their union. Normally, when an employer does something illegal like this, the union will ask the NLRB General Counsel to seek a preliminary injunction from the court. When a preliminary injunction is granted, the court recognizes that the harm caused by the employer’s illegal activity cannot be permitted to continue as the matter makes its way through the NLRB and the court of appeals, often over the course of years. In this case, a lower court had granted that injunction, but two Trump appointed judges on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it.
The Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of a delivery driver named Angelo Brock, who works for Flowers Foods, the company that makes Wonder Bread and Krimpets. Brock's job is to pick up baked goods from a warehouse in Colorado and deliver them to stores around Denver. He never leaves the state. Flowers Foods had required him to sign an arbitration agreement, which is a contract that forces workers to settle disputes privately instead of going to court. Brock argued he shouldn’t be bound by that agreement, and the Supreme Court agreed with him.
On May 29, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) announced a new final rule that updates the financial reporting requirements for labor unions. The rule changes the income thresholds that determine which reporting form a union must file.
In a move that will directly impact workers across the nation, the current National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Amazon.com Services LLC, 373 NLRB No. 136, ended captive audience meetings. Captive audience meetings occur when an employer requires employees—under threat of discipline or discharge—to attend a meeting where the employer expresses its opposition to unionization. The NLRB held these meetings violate Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act because they have a reasonable tendency to interfere with and coerce employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights to freely decide whether, when, and how to participate in a debate concerning union representation, or refrain from doing so.
Under California AB 2499, employees can now take protected time off if they are a victim of a wide range of crimes. Prior to the passing of AB 2499, employers were prohibited from terminating, discriminating against, or retaliating against workers because of a worker’s status as a victim of crime or abuse. This included protection for the worker for taking time off to appear as a witness in court for such crime or abuse.
Public Sector
What employers are covered by AB 2561:
AB 2561 applies to employers covered by the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (i.e., cities, counties, and special districts such as utility districts).
California Assembly Bill 2889 prevents the City of Los Angeles Employee Relations Board (ERB) and the Los Angeles County Employee Relations Commission (ERCOM) from awarding strike-preparation expenses and other damages due to an unlawful strike. It grants the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) exclusive initial jurisdiction over requests to block certain employee activities, including strikes, in Los Angeles cases.
Since 2007 California laws have prohibited discrimination against public school students and employees that is based, among other things, on sexual orientation. In 2024, the Legislature passed AB 1955, which added several sections to the Education Code by enacting the SAFETY Act, which is an acronym for Support Academic Futures and Education for Today’s Youth. It is intended to protect students from being “outed” for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning.
AB 1941 amends the Meyers-Milias-Brown to authorize unions to charge certain categories of peace officers who are non-dues-paying bargaining unit members for the “reasonable cost” of representing them. This new section of the MMBA only applies in scenarios where the union does not have exclusive access to the process (i.e., in the public sector there are many types of administrative hearings, disciplinary appeal proceedings, grievance and/or arbitration procedures that allow an employee to pursue a grievance all the way to arbitration with or without the approval or involvement of the union).
In an April 2024 decision, the Public Employment Relations Board (“PERB”) found the County of Santa Clara violated the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act when it refused to meet and confer before heightening the credentialing requirements to work in the County’s hospital system. PERB’s ruling illustrates when an employer has a duty to bargain over the decision and effects of a change in working conditions.
Employee Benefits
Under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act enacted in 2008, there must be “parity” between the benefits a group health plan provides for mental health and substance use disorder treatment and the benefits it provides for other medical and surgical treatment. But what “parity” means, and how a plan beneficiary can allege a violation of the Act, has been an open question.
The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (EFAA) went into effect on March 3, 2022. As an amendment to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), the legislation permits individuals alleging sexual assault and harassment to bypass forced arbitration under the FAA and pursue their claims in court. (9 USC § 402(a).)
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) is a federal law that governs benefits provided by group health plans and health insurance issuers. Since its enactment in 2008, MHPAEA prohibits less favorable benefit limitations for mental health or substance use disorder benefits when compared to limitations on medical and surgical benefits. This law reflects the growing recognition that mental health is a key component of an individual’s overall health and well-being, as well as the fact that addiction is not a personality flaw but has medical components as well.
On September 27, 2023, Governor Newsom signed four bills into law aimed at protecting medical providers who perform abortions and gender-affirming services. The bills are anticipated to improve accessibility and affordability of services for all who need them. While these bills are focused on increasing protections for medical providers performing abortions and gender-affirming services, they confirm current access to healthcare for Californians and could have future impacts on employees’ health insurance.
The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, referred to herein as the Act, established new overpayment recovery rules. When a plan decides to recoup overpayments, the Act establishes limits on recovery amounts, recoupment methods, and the timing of recovery. Prior to the Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”) required pension plan fiduciaries to recoup any plan overpayments mistakenly made to participants. The law provided only narrow circumstances in which fiduciaries were not required to do so. Pension funds would often have no choice but to require retirees to pay back these sometimes significant overpayments—received through no fault of the retiree—creating serious strain particularly because retirees often depend heavily on their pension for necessities.
On June 29, 2023, the Biden administration announced that the National Integrated Group pension plan will receive more than $887 million from the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (known as the PBGC), guaranteeing benefits for thousands who work in or have retired from manufacturing jobs, including United Auto Workers retirees. The plan was expected to run out of money in 2034, forcing retirees to lose 15% of their benefits.
Workplace Immigration
AB 1888 establishes a Labor Trafficking Unit within California’s Department of Justice. The goal of this new law is to investigate and prosecute those who force or coerce vulnerable people into jobs with little or no pay, often in poor and unsafe working conditions. Labor trafficking targets workers by making them vulnerable to threats regarding their immigration status, threats to their families’ safety, and threats involving their wages.
The U visa was created in 2000 through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act to combat human trafficking and to encourage immigrants to report crimes. It is similar to the T visa, which specifically grants immigrants who have experienced a severe form of trafficking (either sex or labor trafficking) temporary authorization to remain and work in the U.S. Compared to the T visa, the U visa provides a broader form of protection for immigrants, since it is not just limited to victims of severe trafficking.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, their families, and their communities remain in limbo after the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas reaffirmed its previous determination against DACA. This decision is another disappointing step back for the valuable immigration program that permits certain immigrants brought to the United States as children to apply, on a case-by-case basis, for temporary work authorization and relief from deportation.
Immigrant workers, including undocumented workers, are protected by federal and California wage and hour laws regardless of their citizenship status. Like other workers, immigrant workers have the right to organize a union and collectively bargain with employers under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
Immigrant workers, including undocumented workers, are protected by federal and California wage and hour laws regardless of their citizenship status. Like other workers, immigrant workers have the right to organize a union and collectively bargain with employers under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).