Today’s Labor Updates:

Nigeria: Oil Workers Suspend Strike

Flexible working – achieving a work life balance in France

NLRB Says “Liking” Another Employee’s Facebook Comment is Protected Activity

NLRB Says There Is Such Thing as a Free Lunch

New Zealand: Oil refinery workers to stage two day strike

 

Nigeria: Oil Workers Suspend Strike

By Nan

THE National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, on Friday night suspended its five-day-old strike.

The suspension was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of a marathon meeting with the Minister of Petroleum, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke and the Management of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

The oil workers had on Monday ordered their members to embark on indefinite strike in protest against NNPC’s alleged refusal to address unresolved pension issues concerning workers in the oil industry

The communiqué, which was read by NUPENG President, Mr. Achese Igwe, was signed by PENGASSAN President, Mr. Francis Johnson, and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Dry Jamila Shu’ara.

Others who signed the communiqué include NNPC GMD, Dry Joseph Dawha; Group Chairman, NNPC PENGASSAN, Mr. Abdulhakim Sanusi; Group Chairman NNPC NUPENG, Mr. Richard Otovwievwiere and Chairman, Department of Petroleum Resources PENGASSAN, Mr. Anba Ndoma-Egba.

Igwe said the industrial action was suspended after the intervention of the Minister of Petroleum Resources.

“By virtue of the intervention of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, the strike embarked upon by NUPENG and PENGASSAN of NNPC Group Executive councils and DPR is hereby suspended,” he said.

He said after exhaustive deliberations, the Minister informed the unions that PENCOM letter withdrawing the temporary licence granted to NNPC to run defined Benefited Scheme had been reversed.

According to him, the Minister affirmed that participatory approval had been given to measures and timeliness proposed by the NNPC management to close the existing N86.5bn pension fund gap on or before August 2015.

He said, “The minister emphasised the need to embrace international standard pension fund structure and framework so that the pension gap is closed, the frame work will ensure that the pension fund is invested and managed to guarantee sustainability.

“It was agreed that a committee comprising members drawn from NNPC Management, PENGASSAN, NUPENG, DPR, RSA, and CSLD will be established to work out the modalities and framework for sustaining the NNPC pension scheme, along the oil and gas Private Sector lines.”

He said the Minister also affirmed that the issue of NNPC crude oil supply to refineries, Turn Around Maintenance of the Refineries and other internal operational matters should be internally handled by the NNPC management and the staff unions.

He said the NNPC GMD in consultation with the in-house unions shall determine the amount to be paid as the lump to the pension fund within the approval already granted by the Minister of Petroleum Resources.

He said the Minister assured the meeting that the NNPC GMD has the capacity to deal with the concerns of the unions on the strategic Alliance Agreement between NPDC and other companies.

PENGASSAN President, Mr. Francis Johnson, in an interview with newsmen after the meeting said the unions were satisfied with the agreement and would immediately order their members to resume work.

He, however, said the unions would be monitoring the implementation of the agreement which he said would determine the sustainability of the suspended strike.

Flexible working – achieving a work life balance in France

Judicaël Fouquet

September 19 2014

The issue of reconciling work and personal life has become a growing concern in France and resulted in particular in the negotiation of a nation-wide inter-sectoral agreement relating to the quality of working life in 2013. In this context, the issue of flexible working raises, among other things, the question of whether employees benefit from particular rights to request more flexible working organisation, i.e. a change in working hours or a request to work from home, on the basis of family-related obligations or, more broadly, personal constraints.

As a general rule, rights as well as individual and collective freedom of employees can only be restricted if such restriction is justified by the nature of the task to be performed and is proportional to the purpose sought. Consequently, an employer would be required to take into consideration the impact of its decisions on the personal life of its employees. Indirectly, this permits, to a certain extent, the reconciliation of work and personal life through the prism of protection of the employees’ liberties by allowing them to challenge the validity of the employer’s decisions if such decisions can be considered as an abuse by the employer of its authority.

However, subject to more favorable provisions in the employment contract or the company’s collective status, French employment law does not provide for a comprehensive set of rules permitting employees to request a more flexible working pattern from their employer.

In this respect, only certain specific statutory provisions can be used for the benefit of employees in order to achieve a work life balance.  We summarise below the most significant provisions.

Part-time work provisions

• Full-time employees willing to assume or return to a part-time position within the same company enjoy priority of access to a part-time employment in their professional category or to a similar employment. Conversely, a similar priority is provided for part-time employees willing to assume or return to a full-time position or a position with longer working hours.
• Voluntary part-time work: the employee may request a change from full-time to part-time hours from the employer. The conditions of implementation of such request are determined by the applicable collective agreement, which should provide that the employer may only refuse such request on the basis of objective reasons. In the absence of a collective agreement, the employer may only refuse such request if it can demonstrate the absence of available employment within the employee’s professional category or show that the change requested by the employee would result in prejudicial consequences on the proper operation of the company.
• Family part-time: the employee may, at his/her request and for family-related reasons, benefit from a reduction in his/her working time in the form of one or several periods of at least one week. The employer may only refuse such request for objective reasons related to the operational requirements of the company.
• Leaves on a part-time basis: upon fulfillment of specific conditions, employees are entitled to take specific leaves through a reduction in their working time. There exists two main leaves to which the employees may be entitled, i.e. parental leave and business creation leave. While part-time work under parental leave may not be opposed by the employer, a reduction in working time in the context of a business creation leave can be delayed or refused in certain circumstances (quota of simultaneous absences, prejudicial consequences on the production and operation of the business for companies employing less than 200 employees) and can in any event be delayed for up to 6 months without justification.

Night work

Similarly to part-time work, night workers benefit from a priority of access to day work. A priority of access to night work is also available today workers.

Sunday work

In certain situations of Sunday work, employees are granted a priority of access to employment that does not include work on Sundays. In such cases, employees are also entitled to request that they no longer work on Sundays, such change being effective 3 months following the notification of the request to the employer.

Working hours

In this regard, any employee can benefit from an adjustment to his/her work schedule for the practice of a sport. This right is however not absolute as it is contingent on the operational needs of the business.

Apart from the above, there are no other particular rights related to working hours that allow a better work life balance for the benefit of employees. Although there does exist a working time organization in which working hours can be partly individualized (as opposed to collective working hours), such organization is always subject to the employer’s consent and thus cannot be requested by the employee.

Working from home

Under French employment law, it is possible to implement a working organization in which employees work from their home. However, this type of working arrangement may only be put in place with the employer and employee’s consent. Therefore, the employee would not be allowed to impose this particular working organisation. At the very least, it should be noted that the employee working from his/her home benefits from a priority of access to any available non-home working position within the company.

NLRB Says “Liking” Another Employee’s Facebook Comment is Protected Activity

9/23/2014

By Jonathan Crotty, Charlotte Offerdahl

The National Labor Relations Board continues its line of decisions declaring employee social media use as protected concerted activity under Section 7 of the NLRA. Last month in Triple Play Sports Bar & Grille, the Board extended these protections to an employee who hit the “like” button in response to another employee’s complaint on Facebook about the employer’s payroll practices.

The employer underestimated state tax withholdings, resulting in a number of employees owing additional taxes. One upset employee posted a Facebook status update complaining about the error, and calling the owner of the business an “asshole.” Several other employees echoed these comments, and one simply “liked” the original posting. The employer learned of the discussion from a friend of the posting employee, and terminated the employees for disloyalty.

The NLRB affirmed a decision finding the employer in violation of Section 7. The discussions were clearly work-related, and the Board noted prior decisions finding Facebook comments protected concerted activity even if they involve or can be viewed by persons outside of the company.

On appeal, the employer contended that the discussion lost its protected status due to the defamatory and disparaging nature of the comments. It claimed that by liking the comment, the discharged employee was stating her approval of the nature of these comments. The Board, disagreed, affirming the earlier decision. In its opinion, the NLRB made no distinction between an employee who directly complains about working conditions, and one who merely likes, or echoes those earlier opinions. The Board concluded that the original comments were not defamatory, and therefore, the entire discussion constituted protected concerted activity.

Employers should not take disciplinary action against employee for misuse of social media before careful consideration and consultation with legal counsel. The NLRB is granting employees considerable leeway with regard to the tone and content of work-related complaints, and the employer’s taking offense at such comments in most cases will not create a viable legal defense.

NLRB Says There Is Such Thing as a Free Lunch

posted on:  Monday, September 22, 2014

This week, the National Labor Relations Board (the NLRB) attempted to disprove the old adage that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. In Gates & Sons Barbeque of Missouri, Inc., decided on September 16, 2014, the three-member panel of the NLRB unanimously affirmed most of the decision reached by an administrative law judge (the ALJ) that a Kansas City barbecue restaurant chain violated employee rights by taking away the meal benefits previously afforded to its employees.

The free lunch at issue in this case consisted of a meat sandwich and a side provided to each employee during each shift that he or she worked, a $6 to $10 value. This lunch benefit was provided to employees at the Main Stree location (the only location, out of eight total locations, at issue) from at least 2011 until the end of July 2013.  Other benefits received by employees during this time included the right to make purchases on a “tab,” to be deducted from future paychecks, and qualification for monthly bonuses tied to the location’s performance.

In July 2013, some of the employees of the Main Street location took part in a campaign, organized by the Workers’ Organizing Committee of Kansas City (the WOC), to obtain higher wages for food workers. Prior to the planned 1-day strike organized by the WOC, the Main Street location manager met with a group of employees that had previously met with a WOC organizer and made various threats intended to stop them from striking. In spite of the threats, nine out of the thirty Main Street employees participated in the 1-day strike. The workers that struck were all allowed to return to work, but the Main Street location supervisors announced the following week, via posted notices and word of mouth, that they were discontinuing certain employee benefits, including the free employee meals and the right to buy food on a tab.

Despite the testimony of one of the Main Street location’s supervisors that the free lunch was taken away from the workers because of customer complaints and poor performance, the ALJ found that the taking away of the free lunch and other benefits was a violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act because it was in retaliation for the employees’ participation in the 1-day strike. Gates & Sons was ordered to make their employees whole for the lost meal benefit.

New Zealand: Oil refinery workers to stage two day strike

Tuesday 23 Sep 2014 10:55 a.m.

About half of the workforce at the Marsden Point oil refinery are to stage a two-day strike next month.

New Zealand Refining said two unions, covering around 160 of its 300 workers, had given it notice of the strike action on October 7 and 8.

In statement to the stock exchange, the owners of New Zealand’s only oil refinery, said they had been in negotiations with the First union and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union over a new collective agreement since May.

The strike covering refinery operators, emergency servicemen, mechanical, instrument and maintenance workers, will force the refinery to shut down its processing units for at least 11 days.

“If the strike proceeds, the estimated time for a safe shutdown, two days of strike, followed by a restart of the plant, totals a minimum of 11 days. This timeframe is dependent on a successful restart of the plant,” it said.  The company says the shutdown could result in $8 million to $9 million of lost processing fees.  The company would continue to operate the refinery to Auckland pipeline, it said.