Today’s Labor Update:

Dominican Republic businesses waylay 200 labor unions

Allowing an employee to work a shorter shift may be a reasonable accommodation

Employment & Labour law in India

NUPENG threatens strike action over Chevron workers’ crisis

Economy – 23 September 2015, 7:48 AM

Dominican Republic businesses waylay 200 labor unions

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic´s business sector has eliminated around 200 workers organizations, collective bargaining committees in the last 10 years, Rafael-Pepe-Abreu, president of the labor unions grouped in CNUS revealed Tuesday.

He said management has committed the actions via layoffs, firings, transfers, forced resignations or isolation of workers who’ve sought to form a union.

Abreu said the practices are more common in hotels, free zone companies, manufacturing, suppliers and retail, among others.

He said marked interests between capital and labor jeopardize the unions, which even despite progress around the world in that aspect, is reflected in the major rift between the two sectors. “A business leader may be the most democratic person in the world and even touts it, but if you tell him to allow their workers to form a union, that´s where democracy ends.”

Nonetheless Abreu acknowledged having accomplished the traditional collective agreements, but noted that it´s not the same as a union and cited the cases of food processing companies, sugar mills, soft drink makers among others.

Allowing an employee to work a shorter shift may be a reasonable accommodation
Blog Labor & Employment Law Perspectives

Allowing an employee to work a shorter shift may be a reasonable accommodation

Foley & Lardner LLP – Susan R. Maisa

USA September 21 2015

A recent federal district court decision is a good reminder that an employer needs to explore all options before denying an accommodation request, including whether it can go back to an employment practice it has changed and applied to all similarly situated employees. The recent case involved a nurse at a hospital with a brain tumor. For years, she worked eight-hour shifts, which were consistent with her medical needs. Over a period of time, according to the hospital but disputed by the employee, the hospital changed its shift practices and required all affected employees to work 12-hour shifts.

The nurse submitted a note from her doctor saying she needed to continue to work eight-hour shifts. The hospital denied the request on the grounds that it could not make an exception for this employee because there would not be proper team coverage for the hospital’s patients for the four hours of each shift that this employee could not work. The hospital contended that the new 12-hour shift practice was, therefore, an essential function. Sounds reasonable, right? Not so fast.

The employee was eventually terminated and filed an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) denial of accommodation claim. The court did not outright reject the employer’s argument. Instead, it found that the nurse had presented enough evidence to create a question as to whether the hospital could make an exception to the shift requirement as an accommodation for her, including that a combination of four-hour, eight-hour, and 12-hour shifts had worked in the past. The court, as a result, denied the employer’s motion for summary judgment and said the issue was for a jury to decide.

This case provides several important lessons.

• The fact that a policy is applied to all other employees does not mean an employer may not have to make an exception for a disabled employee who needs an accommodation. That is often the essence of making an accommodation: Doing something you do not do for other employees because of the disabled employee’s particular medical needs.
• If the employer is looking at denying the employee’s requested accommodation and does not identify another option that meets the employee’s needs (remember the employer does not have to accept the employee’s requested accommodation, even if it would work, if the employer can provide a different accommodation that effectively solves the medical issue), the employer should be as comfortable as it can that the reason for the denial of the accommodation request would likely be compelling enough to get summary judgment granted and avoid a jury trial.
• There was also an issue in this case as to whether the employer fully engaged in the interactive process required by the ADA. This potential failure to engage in the interactive process may have affected the court’s decision to deny summary judgment. So employers should keep in mind that if it is looking like the accommodation request may be denied, the employer should err on overdoing the interactive process. This will not only help the employer make sure it is not missing any facts as to why an accommodation request cannot be granted – either the one requested by the employee or another option – it may also help get over the summary judgment hurdle. As we all know, keeping these issues from juries will be less expensive and less risky as to the outcome.

Employment & Labour law in India

Global, India September 15 2015

Select the following link to view the full article: Country snapshot

Published On: Tue, Sep 22nd, 2015

Oil | By JOSHUA BASSEY

NUPENG threatens strike action over Chevron workers’ crisis

The Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) on Monday issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Federal Government on the unresolved issues affecting Chevron contract workers over alleged anti-labour practices, with a threat to embark on a nationwide strike action.

The union in a statement made available to the media and signed by Igwe Achese, its president, said, “if the Federal Government fails to intervene in the unresolved anti-labour practices of Chevron at the expiration of the seven-day ultimatum,” it would commence a national-wide strike action immediately.

The union added that it had watched with keen interest the resolution reached with the Union, Chevron and the Federal Ministry of Labour and yet there was an ongoing termination of the jobs of our members.

It alleged that despite the intervention of the federal ministries of labour and petroleum resources, “Chevron and its labour contractors have not deemed it fit to honour the resolutions reached at all its meetings.”

NUPENG added that some of the unresolved issues include job categorisation of its members who had workers as contract staff for over 25 years. “But Chevron Nigeria Limited in their bid to deplete the numerical strength of NUPENG introduced an obnoxious criteria of using remuneration to determine which union the contract workers should belong to in the company,” it said.

Other issues include the massive retirement of our members by the management of the various Chevron Labour Contractors without due process.

The union further stated that some of the workers transited from the former six contractors to the new 16 contractors, and were not paid their full entitlements as documented by NAPIMS, and other were therefore short paid.

NUPENG added that all agreements reached with the Federal Ministry of Labour were reneged by Chevron and that they even refused to appear in a meeting convened by the group managing director of the NNPC in Abuja last week.

The union alleged that the company had begun secret recruitment of workers in order to phase out NUPENG members, and that would be resisted at all cost.