Punching In: Labor Department Reckons With César Chávez Legacy

Monday morning musings for workplace watchers

Removing Chavez | Reversing Policies Before Action

Parker Purifoy: The US Labor Department removed a portrait of César Chávez and covered up an engraving of his name in its headquarters after sexual abuse allegations came out against the former labor leader and civil rights activist.

The alterations came to DOL’s auditorium Wednesday afternoon, according to a department staffer. It was renamed the César Chávez Memorial Auditorium in 2012 along with the induction of farmworker activists to the department’s Hall of Honor.

Chávez co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, along with Dolores Huerta and Gilbert Padilla, which eventually became the United Farm Workers after merging with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee.

Chávez became an icon for both the labor and progressive movements after his death in 1993 and his birthday was designated as a federal commemoration by President Barack Obama.

A report published first in the New York Times last week detailed allegations that Chávez sexually abused girls and women, including Huerta, during his time in the labor movement.

Other officials across the country are also scrambling to remove and cover up statutes and cancel events celebrating Chávez. Denver city leaders said last week they would rename César Chávez Day to Sí Se Puede Day, a rallying cry used by the farmworker movement that translates “yes we can.”

A DOL official said the department covered Chávez’s name to be sensitive to the allegations.

The AFL-CIO said in a March 18 statement that the allegations came as a shock and said it wouldn’t participate in or endorse any upcoming events for César Chávez Day. The UFW Foundation called the allegations “disturbing,” and “indefensible,” in a statement, saying that it had canceled all events for the holiday as well.

“For nearly 20 years, the UFW Foundation has worked to advocate, organize and provide direct services that protect and serve farm workers and immigrants—many of whom are women, and many of whom have shared their painful stories with us,” it said. “We know this is difficult and painful and the healing and safety of survivors is of utmost importance to us.”

An American flag hangs over a sign for the Cesar Chavez auditorium at the DOL’s headquarters in Washington DC

Parker Purifoy

Robert Iafolla: Federal appeals courts are set to decide whether Amazon.com Inc. and Starbucks Corp. can challenge new National Labor Relations Board standards even when they weren’t applied to find those companies, or any, violated labor law.

Amazon appealed the NLRB’s ban on employers holding mandatory anti-union meetings, which was set in a 2024 decision throwing out allegations that the online retailer held illegal gatherings. The board said it would apply the restriction on captive audience meetings in future cases.

Starbucks similarly contested the NLRB’s test for determining whether employer predictions about the consequences of unionization cross the legal line and are unlawful threats. The board dismissed threat allegations against the coffee chain in the 2024 decision that created the new standard, saying it would only be applied prospectively.

Neither company has standing to challenge standards that weren’t applied to them, nor are their appeals ripe because the NLRB hasn’t applied the new tests on any employer, the board argued in both the Amazon and Starbucks cases.

But the NLRB’s bid to block judicial review of the two unapplied legal tests invites more scrutiny of its longstanding practice of setting broadly applicable labor law standards in individual case rulings rather than notice-and-comment rulemaking.

Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit refused to apply the framework from Cemex Construction Materials Pacific LLC in a case involving a bourbon distillery because it should have been established in rulemaking.

Although the decision marked a break from decades of judges allowing the NLRB to choose adjudication for setting national labor policy, the anti-agency atmosphere in the federal courts signals that the board will face greater judicial resistance to that practice moving forward.

One of the Sixth Circuit’s reasons for negating the Cemex standard is that it wasn’t needed to resolve the case itself, which seems to threaten frameworks that weren’t applied in the rulings that created them.

Amazon told the Eleventh Circuit that it would face no barriers to litigating a pre-enforcement challenge to a captive audience ban created through rulemaking.

“This Court should not permit the Board to circumvent judicial review through its strategic choice of adjudication over rulemaking,” the company said.

An answer from courts on whether they can challenge the standards may take time. The Eleventh Circuit has set oral argument in May for Amazon’s case, while the Ninth Circuit hasn’t scheduled argument for Starbucks’ appeal.

We’re punching out. Daily Labor Report subscribers please check in for updates during the week, and feel free to reach out to us.