Volume 5, Issue 5

May 2016

Will the Teachers Union Organize Your Charter School Next?

Two weeks ago, a group of teachers at Lusher Charter School announced that they were forming a labor union in affiliation with the same local and national teachers unions that represented Orleans Parish teachers before Hurricane Katrina, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the United Teachers for New Orleans (UTNO). If the union is formed and certified as the teachers' bargaining representative, Lusher will become the third school in three years to unionize, joining Morris Jeff Community School and Ben Franklin High School. This announcement proves that national and local unions are actively targeting the Louisiana's charter schools, meaning that a growing number of schools will find themselves facing fundamental challenges from unions to the way they operate their schools and educate their students. Click here to read the full article.

Louisiana Governor Issues Anti-Discrimination Order for LGBT Community

Governor John Bel Edwards issued an executive order on April 13, 2016 protecting state workers and state contractors from being fired, discriminated against or harassed based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The order also included all Louisiana state agencies, departments and offices. For the first time, the nondiscrimination policy will include transgender people. The order was enacted effective immediately, except for the parts that applied to state contractors, which will go into effect on July 1. The order does include exceptions for religious organizations who believe complying with the nondiscrimination policy violates their religious beliefs. This protects entities like the Catholic church and other religious organizations that contract with the state to provide educational, healthcare and adoption services.

U.S. Women's National Soccer Team Files Wage Discrimination Claim

Five of U.S. Soccer's most decorated players, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn, have filed a wage discrimination claim with the EEOC against the United States Soccer Federation. The women, all current World Cup and Olympic champions, claim that U.S. Soccer has paid them 40% less than their male counterparts, despite the fact that they produce more revenue than the men's team. The claim points to payouts for regular season games where men get paid for a certain amount for a win, loss or tie, while the women's team only gets paid if they win. U. S. Soccer claims that the team's collective bargaining agreement is valid until December 2016, thus keeping their current pay through the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. However, the players' union claims that the memorandum of understanding agreement from March 2013 would allow for the collective bargaining agreement to be terminated at any time.

Personal Trainers at Gold's Gym Eligible for Overtime Under FLSA

A federal district court in Texas ruled that personal trainers at Texas locations of Gold's Gym are not exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act and may seek overtime pay. According to the court, the FLSA exemption for retail or service establishment employees whose compensation is more than 50 percent based on commissions does not apply. The trainers are only paid a share of fees paid by gym customers after providing those customers with hour-long training sessions. The court said that the trainer's pay is not "decoupled" from actual working hours so Gold's Gym cannot claim the exemption for commission-paid employees. The ruling clarifies when retail employees can be deemed as working on commission for purposes of the FLSA exemption.