Business Wire (09/12/13)

CTPartners will acquire Taylor Executive Consultancy Latam S. de R.L., and Eduardo Taylor will join CTPartners as the managing partner, Mexico. Taylor is a multinational executive search consultant with more than 17 years of experience. His focus is on the industrial and consumer products markets.

Wall Street Journal (09/12/13) Miriam Jordan; Julie Jargon

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has notified 1,000 companies across the country that they must submit employment verification documents for audits. This is the largest audit since July 2009. The audits target restaurants, food processors, high-tech manufacturers, the agriculture sector, and other industries that cumulatively employ tens of thousands of workers.

The audits will not lead to deportation of illegal workers, but those workers will lose their jobs, which critics point out can drive immigrants to exploitative, off-the-books work. They can also cause lost productivity and result in large fines and the loss of employees to competitors. ICE typically requests Forms I-9, worker rosters, and payroll stubs, then issues notices of suspect documents to employers, which inform their workers they must either produce legal documentation or quit. More than 10,000 employers have been audited in the past four years. The audits have grown more intense, and ICE now requests not just basic paperwork but weekly work schedules, names of managers, lists of temporary staffing firms used, and the company’s articles of incorporation.

Wall Street Journal (09/13/13) Neal E. Boudette

The United Auto Workers believes it has signed union cards from more than 50% of Volkswagen AG’s employees at its plant in Chattanooga, TN. If verified, the union can seek certification from the National Labor Relations Board as the plant’s official representative. Volkswagen chose to place the plant in Tennessee in 2011 in part because it was a right-to-work state.

German labor representatives have pushed to have workers represented by a works council, and U.S. labor law requires companies with works councils to have workers represented by an outside union. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) wants to keep the union out of the plant, to entice other businesses to the state.

Wall Street Journal (09/12/13) Richard Berman

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations voted Monday to include “worker centers” in its ranks. These nonunion affiliates stage strikes with few actual employees and circumvent federal laws governing unions—such as the National Labor Relations Act—according to this opinion piece. The groups behind worker centers include nonprofits, charities, educational groups, and community organizations.

Worker centers help unions gain support in sectors that have historically eschewed organized labor. At first, strikes organized by worker centers include very few employees of a company they protest—far fewer than the 30% that is mandated before a union can hold an election. Initially, the aim is to influence public opinion against a company, which then will foster dissent among a growing cohort of employees. The final goal is unionization. Major labor unions have established the most prominent worker centers, such as OUR Walmart and the Restaurant Opportunities Center.