Senate Democrats Insist That They Need a Little “RESPECT;” Seek to Narrow Definition of “Supervisor”

Senate Democrats are trying to get a little respect but not in the sense of the late Rodney Dangerfield.

Late last week, Senate Democrats announced that they introduced a bill known as the Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradeworkers Act, or RESPECT Act. The bill is intended to narrow the definition of "supervisor" under the NLRA which would increase the amount of workers who are eligible to join unions. The latest version of the RESPECT Act (previously introduced in 2006) would remove the terms “assign” and "responsibility to direct” from Section 2(11) of the Act and would also insert language requiring employees to spend a majority of their time on supervisory duties in order to be considered supervisors.