Theresa May: I don’t want a cabinet of ‘yes men’
October 3, 2017 by admin
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Theresa May has brushed off questions about Boris Johnson’s recent Brexit comments – saying she does not want to be surrounded by “yes men”.
The prime minister told BBC Breakfast “leadership is about ensuring you have a team… of different voices around the table so you can discuss matters”.
Mrs May was speaking ahead of a day in which the foreign secretary is due to deliver his key conference speech.
It comes after Mr Johnson set out his Brexit “red lines” at the weekend.
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Mrs May has been shown the foreign secretary’s speech and is understood to be happy with it, the BBC’s assistant political editor Norman Smith.
Sources say the speech is 100% loyal to the prime minister and the Brexit agenda set out in her Florence speech last month, Norman Smith added.
Asked whether there were any red lines which Mr Johnson himself should not cross, Mrs May told Breakfast: “I don’t set red lines. Everybody uses this phrase ‘red lines’. I don’t set those sort of red lines.
“All I would say is actually I think leadership is about ensuring you have a team of people who aren’t yes men, but a team of people of different voices around the table, so you can discuss matters, come to an agreement and then put that government view forward, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Speaking later on BBC Radio 4′s Today, Mrs May said the foreign secretary and the rest of the cabinet were united behind her Brexit strategy, insisting that European leaders knew what the UK wanted and that her Florence speech had “changed the dial”.
“What I am very clear about is of course the prime minister is in charge,” she said.
Mrs May said the foreign secretary would be talking about his vision for a “global Britain” after Brexit in his speech later and she supported that.
On Europe, she said she backed an implementation period of about two years after the UK leaves in March 2019 but suggested that some changes could come into effect earlier if appropriate.
On her own future, she said was committed to delivering the “mission of government”, insisting that there was “a long term job to be done here”.
She acknowledged that her message “did not come across in the general election” as she would have wanted and it was apparent the concerns of the British people were “more keenly felt” than people had thought.
Mrs May said the election had shown that many people felt “left behind and ignored” but she insisted that change would not happen overnight and no “great phrase” would transform things.
“I am very clear about the problems in society but I am very clear as a politician and particularly as prime minister, we owe it to people to show how we can deliver and resolve those politicians.
“There is no simple idea that is going to change all of these. It will take action in a number of areas.”
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Supreme Court hears workers’ rights case in Justice Gorsuch’s debut
October 3, 2017 by admin
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The Supreme Court justices returned to the bench Monday ready to argue — and disagree sharply along usual ideological lines — on a basic question of workers’ rights in the 21st Century.
Can employees join together to argue their company is violating the law by denying them overtime pay or minimum wages or by discriminating against women or minorities?
To the court’s four liberal justices, this looked like a case of back to the future. Early in the 20th Century, companies often required workers to waive their rights to join a union or take collective action. Those agreements were referred to as “yellow dog contracts,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted. In 1935, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congress adopted the National Labor Relations Act, which guaranteed workers a right to join a union and to take “other concerted activities” to protect their interests. The yellow dog contract became a thing of the past.
In the past decade, however, a growing number of companies have started to require employees to waive their rights to sue in court or join class-action cases and agree instead to arbitrate disputes as individuals. Under these rules, employees are barred from joining co-workers to seek overtime pay or other benefits promised by law.
About 60 million nonunionized private sector workers are bound by arbitration clauses — that’s about half the private-sector labor force — and 25 million of them must bring their claims as individuals.
Companies say arbitration is more efficient and less costly than going to court, and that a worker retains the right to bring an individual claim. Workers’ rights advocates say that as a practical matter, an employee will not contest the legality of a company policy if he or she must do so alone.
As a legal matter, the case involves a conflict between two major laws — the National Labor Relations Act and the Federal Arbitration Act, passed in 1925, which generally encourages the use of arbitration as a substitute for lawsuits.
In Monday’s case, the Trump administration’s top lawyer and a former Bush administration attorney, now representing private companies, made a joint appearance, urging the court to uphold the individual arbitration rule and bar workers from joining together to bring legal claims.
Stephen G. Breyer.
Ginsburg said the 1925 arbitration law concerned merchants who were making commercial deals. By contrast, for employees today, “there is no true bargaining. It’s the employer who says that if you want to work here, you sign this,” she said.
“This is truly a situation where there is strength in numbers,” she added. “That was the core idea of the NLRA.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan also insisted the 1930s-era laws make clear employers cannot require workers to waive their rights to bring joint claims.
But as soon as the general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board rose to the lectern to argue in favor of the labor law, the court’s conservative justices pounced. Richard Griffin Jr., an Obama appointee, said the labor board was right to reject employment contracts that forbid employees from bringing joint claims.
“I’m not sure I fully understand your position,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
If arbitration is legal for employees, he asked, why should they be able to ignore the rule requiring disputes be resolved individually?. Justice Samuel Alito said the court had upheld arbitration agreements in a variety of contexts. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy suggested a middle-ground solution: Disgruntled workers could hire the same lawyer, who could then file a series of individual arbitration claims on their behalf.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch sat silently, but their votes could create a conservative majority to uphold company rules that bar workers from joining together in legal claims.
The justices have agreed to decide three separate cases, all involving claims for overtime pay. NLRB vs. Murphy Oil came from gas station workers in Alabama. Ernest Young vs. Morris came from several accountants in northern California and Epic Systems vs. Lewis came from technical writers in Wisconsin.
david.savage@latimes.com