Virginia's Labor and Commerce Subcommittee #2 advanced six Senate bills spanning franchise non-competes, solar prevailing wages, roofing insurance consumer protections, propane cancellation rights, unemployment lockout exceptions, and expanded civil rights employer thresholds — all reported favorably, with the most contentious debates centering on whether a propane cancellation bill unfairly burdens an entire industry over one bad actor, and whether unlocking unemployment benefits for locked-out workers tips the scales against employers.
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Andrew Sinclair (Virginia Chamber of Commerce) argued the bill would create a financial subsidy for one side of a private labor dispute paid by the entire business community rather than the employer in the dispute. Senator Suarevel countered that the bill includes three specific exceptions — including when a union refuses to meet under reasonable conditions, violates a collective bargaining agreement, or is found by final NLRA adjudication to have refused to bargain in good faith — and concluded 'So it's not exactly a unilateral tipping of the playing field.'
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“The issue of attorney's fees and cost is complicated. We go by the American rule, not the English rule. So we don't get attorneys fees unless it's in the contract. And I can assure you that Amerigas contracts are contracts of adhesion, and they do not allow for that. How many people can pay a lawyer five or $10,000 to go sue over a propane tank?”
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Sign in to subscribeWe are going to go at ease for a bit. I am. We do not know when we're going to have our Senate patrons here. I appreciate that. We do have to wait for some folks and so I apologize. We will go at ease at this point and come back as soon as possible. Thank you. Report any announcements on the Deaths today, Thursday, February 26th, the committee we're going to do a few of the bills that have identical, identical, you know, cognates or I just repeated myself, identical bills that pass out of the House. And we're going to have the patrons of those bills who are familiar with the current amendments, the current status of each of the pieces of legislation present the bills. So with that we're going to actually have for SB240 we're going to have Delegate Helmer present the bill on retail franchise agreements that passed out of labor and Commerce 20 to nothing and passed out of the House 97 to nothing. With that, Delegate Helmer, thank you Mr. Chair. As you said, Mr. Chair, SB 240 is the cognate of my retail franchise agreement governing law, competition, restrictions. In discussions with…
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