HB 179-EMPLOYEE RIGHTS, EMPLOYER SPEECH  3:20:47 PM CHAIR SUMNER announced that the first order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 179, "An Act relating to employee rights; and providing for an effective date." 3:21:22 PM REPRESENTATIVE WRIGHT, as the prime sponsor, introduced HB 179. He said HB 179 would put an end to meetings held during work hours where employees are forced to listen to religious or political discussions with the threat of punishment if they don't comply. Such practices undermine democracy, the freedom of thought, and the right to disagree, he submitted. He stated that HB 179 proposes a solution that is a fair compromise in that it allows for political or religious discussion in the workplace while ensuring these conversations are voluntary and employees are respected and protected in the workplace, balancing the freedom of expression with individual rights. 3:23:14 PM RACHAEL GUNN, Staff, Representative Stanley Wright, ,Alaska State Legislature, spoke to HB 179 on behalf of Representative Wright, prime sponsor. She stressed that there is an inherent power imbalance in the workplace because the boss controls the employee's schedule, vacation time, raises, and can terminate an at-will employee. On the clock, hours-long captive audience meetings, she continued, illuminate these power dynamics because they are aimed at indoctrinating employees with specific political or religious ideologies, not enhancing productivity or fostering teamwork, and they send a clear message to fall in line or face the consequences. MS. GUNN said the crux of coercion is the clear distortion of choice. She cited a 2015 study which found that one in four workers have been contacted by their employer regarding a political matter. Of these workers, she continued, 20 percent received messages from their boss that included one or more threats of job loss, business closure, or changes to wages and hours, which calculates into the figure of 5 percent of workers nationally being subjected to coercive meetings. She reported that US employers annually pour 433 million tax deductible dollars into union avoidance strategies, such as hiring consultants and subjecting employees to as many as 10 captive audience meetings during union election campaigns. She stated that HB 179 ensures dignity and balance in the workplace by ensuring that employees are no longer subjected to coercive captive audience meetings, thus protecting their right to think, speak, and vote according to their own beliefs without fear of retribution or coercion. 3:25:34 PM PATRICK FITZGERALD, Political Coordinator, Teamsters Local 959, provided invited testimony in favor of HB 179. He defined a "captive audience meeting" as a group of workers being summoned by their employer or manager to a meeting during work hours and subjugated to listening to a one-way conversation of the personal beliefs of their employer or manager. He said captive audience meetings happen all the time in Alaska. He cited one example of a garbage truck operation that hired a consultant to dissuade its workers from joining a union, and another example where non-union workers were told to take their tools and go home if they didn't want to be filmed in advertisements for a political candidate. MR. FITZGERALD said the most worrisome of captive audience meetings are those that begin as a safety meeting, which are allowed, but the meeting then rapidly changes to a coercive meeting that tries to influence the workers for political or religious purposes. He stated that HB 179 provides protection when such meetings take place and workers identify the change in tone and decide to exercise their right not to participate. He advised that the bill does not offer protection for workers who choose to leave a meeting that is discussing real safety updates or operational information that employees need to know. He further advised that the bill does not prevent a business owner or manager from posting the aspects of these meetings and the workers are allowed to return to work when the scope of the meetings finds its way to political or religious coercion. He said the protections provided in HB 179 are needed in Alaska and will allow for workers to have their right of freedom of speech at the workplace and to not feel political or religious pressure from their boss or supervisor. He urged that HB 179 be passed. 3:28:56 PM REPRESENTATIVE PRAX inquired about anecdotes such as newspaper stories or other public records that could help determine how frequently captive audience meetings are occurring in Alaska. MR. FITZGERALD replied that he will check on whether anything is available publicly that he can share with the committee. He added that Teamsters Local 959 has heard firsthand experiences about such meetings, but he doesn't know the extent of that being public and will get back to the committee. 3:30:03 PM REPRESENTATIVE SADDLER recalled Mr. Fitzgerald's statement that captive audience meetings "happen all the time" and asked what this is based on. He further recalled Ms. Gunn's statistic that 5 percent of workers nationally have been subjected to coercive meetings. He asked whether there are any extrapolations which might indicate that more or less than 5 percent of workers in Alaska are subjected to such meetings. MR. FITZGERALD answered that he used the phrase "all the time" because Local 595 is witness to it as a labor union and offers protection to workers. He deferred to Ms. Gunn for providing a percentage. REPRESENTATIVE SADDLER asked whether "all the time" means a continual or endless series of meetings given no objective number is specified. MR. FITZGERALD replied that he is referring to it happening multiple times in multiple industries and multiple companies. He related that Local 959 has had it happen every now and then when trying to organize and employees were subjected to coercive meetings trying to influence them to not be part of a union. He added that it happens with non-union organizations quite a bit. REPRESENTATIVE SADDLER stated that multiple times does not give him a basis on which to make a decision, so he would like to hear an objective measure to understand how often it happens. MS. GUNN responded that extrapolating data for Alaska is hard, but according to the Economic Policy Institute's 2015 national level study that she cited earlier one in four American workers has been contacted by their employer regarding a political matter, and 20 percent out of that 25 percent had directly received threats of job loss, business closure, or changes to wages and hours. 3:33:21 PM REPRESENTATIVE FIELDS noted that Amazon has used these coercive tactics in every job site where employees have attempted to unionize. This is timely, he continued, given Amazon is opening a facility in Anchorage and Alaska is having more international commerce from very large union busting companies. 3:33:42 PM CHAIR SUMNER drew attention to the sponsor's list of exemptions. He asked whether the exemption for an employer that is a political organization is or is not addressed [in HB 179]. MS. GUNN replied that Section 2(c) of the bill provides that an employer or its representative is not prohibited from communicating information that is legally required or necessary for an employee's job duties. She provided two examples: an employer that hosts wedding events would need to communicate to staff the cultural sensitives of a wedding done under a certain religion; and when there is a ballot initiative that an employer has an extremely vested interest in conveying the employer's viewpoint to its employees. CHAIR SUMNER asked whether it would be a violation under the bill if an employer opened its meetings with a prayer. MS. GUNN responded that the bill doesn't ban religious imagery or communication in the workplace, rather the bill's primary purpose is political or religious ideology sharing. She said an employer or employee is not prohibited from having imagery in the workplace if that is accepted by the employer and the employer could have religious imagery or a prayer. 3:36:03 PM REPRESENTATIVE CARRICK asked whether the threat of retaliation makes it difficult to gather solid data from employees on how frequently this practice happens. MR. FITZGERALD answered that under labor organizations an unfair labor practice (ULP) is filed through an organized working group and those can be tracked. With an organized union employees have protection to share that information, he said, but with non-organized industries or workplaces it's a more difficult to find that information. 3:37:23 PM REPRESENTATIVE PRAX inquired whether this may already be covered via employees filing a complaint with the Human Rights Commission or, in the case of a labor union, by both the people trying to organize a union and the company filing complaints that are resolved by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). MS. GUNN responded that the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission gave cart blanche for political spending and essentially gave a federal license for these political meetings for captive audiences. There is a federal preemption for labor organizing activities under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), she continued, but the NRLA does not protect from captive audience meetings because of the 2010 supreme court Citizens United ruling. REPRESENTATIVE PRAX asked whether the sponsor has checked with the Human Rights Commission regarding any cases. MS. GUNN replied that she will get back to the committee with an answer. REPRESENTATIVE PRAX related that his father ran a restaurant where politically oriented books were sold, so employees were exposed to those views when selling the books. He further related that he himself had a bookstore where he sold politically oriented books. He asked how things would come into play in these two examples. MS. GUNN answered that the bill is exclusively referring to employers taking adverse actions against employees who refuse to attend meetings where the primary function is to communicate the employer's views on political or religious matters, unless, as provided in the exemptions, it has something to do with the employees' job. For example, she continued, if a prayer is conducted where everybody is forced to pray together out loud and to say what they got from the prayers, and retaliation was taken against someone who was unwilling to participate in that conversation. 3:42:07 PM REPRESENTATIVE SADDLER surmised that employees would be paid for attending a safety meeting called by their employer. He further surmised that employees would also be paid for attending a meeting called for coercive purposes. MS. GUNN responded that while the sponsor has seen evidence of captive audience meetings taking place outside of work hours, that isn't the primary purpose of the bill. This legislation, she said, is intended to carve out the ability for an employee to choose to go back to their regular work rather than attend a meeting that the employee knows will be a union busting meeting or on a political or religious topic. 3:43:28 PM CHAIR SUMNER announced that HB 179 was held over.