What would the holiday season be without a Christmas gift case? A perennial problem for labor relations personnel is whether the yearly Christmas turkey given to employees is something that an employer must bargain over before (bah humbug) discontinuing. See, e.g., Q-1 Motor Express, Inc., 323 NLRB 767, 775
NLRB Overturns Election Win For Employer That Failed To Timely Serve Voter List (Even Though Union Received List In Timely Fashion)
By Mark Theodore on
The NLRB is down to three members, the bare minimum required to conduct business, and so cases are being issued somewhat sporadically.
The so-called ambush election rules have received a lot attention over the last few years. We recently discussed here a case where the NLRB found that a union…
Micro-Units under the Microscope: The Second and Fifth Circuit Courts Consider Specialty Healthcare and Its Misapplication
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit joined the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Circuits in upholding the Board’s Specialty Healthcare standard for determining appropriate bargaining units under the National Labor Relations Act, although with a very skeptical eye on how it applied. Constellation…
Federal Appeals Court Rules Counties May Enact Right To Work Laws
By Mark Theodore on
The term “right to work state” is fairly well known. After all, 25 of the United States are “right to work states,” states which have enacted laws prohibiting compulsory unionism as part of a collective bargaining agreement. In a right to work state, the law prohibits the parties to a…
Permanent Pause to Persuader Rule: Texas Court Issues Permanent Nationwide Injunction
By Michael Lebowich & Lee Douthitt on
On November 16, 2016, in National Federation of Independent Business v. Perez, No. 5:16-cv-00066, a federal judge in Texas issued a permanent injunction preventing the Department of Labor (the “DOL”) from enforcing its new interpretation of the Labor-Management Disclosure Act’s “Persuader Rule.” The new DOL interpretation would have required…
NLRB Majority Stuns Nation By Ruling Employer Has Management Right, Chairman Dissents
By Mark Theodore on
In another example of the inconsistency of the current state of Board law, a 2-1 majority of the NLRB ruled that an employer not only had a management right but it wasn’t necessary that this right be expressly set forth in the parties’ contract. This is certainly odd because the…
Employer Claims Of Unprofitability And Competitive Disadvantage Enough To Trigger Audit Of Financials By Union, NLRB Majority Concludes
By Mark Theodore on
The end of another NLRB fiscal year is upon us. Today, September 30, marks the last date of the fiscal year. We can expect to see a number of decisions issue from the Board, and many determinations made at the regional level, as the agency attempts to pump up its…