LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – A food workers union is defending Long Beach’s right to mandate a $4 per hour raise for grocery workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response to a lawsuit filed by the California Grocers Association, the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 324 argued in a Feb. 17 motion to dismiss that Long Beach’s new ordinance is not preempted by the National Labor Relations Act.
Local 324 had previously been granted permission to intervene in the case in Los Angeles federal court.
“The California Grocers Association asks the Court to strike down the Ordinance for reasons that the Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit have rejected for decades,” Paul More of McCracken Stemerman wrote for the union.
“First, the CGA claims that the Ordinance is preempted under the Machinists doctrine of federal labor preemption because it purportedly interferes with grocery companies’ union negotiations. But federal labor law does not preempt state substantive employment standards because those standards do not regulate the process of collective bargaining.”
Also, a local wage mandate does not substantially impair an employment contract to pay something inferior, the motion says.
“If that were the law, the government would have no ability to set minimum wages, overtime, vacation pay or rest breaks, because an employer could simiply point to an employment agreement in which it contracted to pay less,” the motion says.
The “Premium Pay for Grocery Workers Ordinance” makes employers give the $4-an-hour bump despite any existing bonus, incentive or her pay program already in place.
The complaint notes the role grocery stores have played during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The ordinance unreasonably singles out specific employee classes in specific grocers,” the suit says.
The ordinance is barred by federal law regulating collective bargaining and unfair labor practices and violates the equal protection and contracts clauses of both the U.S. and California constitutions, the suit says.