A unit of 22 bus drivers for Columbia County’s “CC Rider” Transit Service voted to join Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757. Days later, the bus contractor employer – MTR Western – lawfully ended its contract with Columbia County. Seattle-based MTR, a non-union charter bus operator, outbid an incumbent union contractor last July to win a bus…

Non-Compete agreements between an employer and its bargaining unit employees are a mandatory subject of bargaining. However, employers do not need to bargain with the union representing those employees before signing agreements with third party companies to not hire the employer’s bargaining unit employees.   In Duke Energy Indiana, the union represented the employer’s linemen…

National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Peter Robb has expressed strong recommendations to give employees access to collect more damages after an arbitration or settlement. This is a stark departure from the otherwise pro-employer and red-tape cutting expectations of the Trump Administration. Currently, employers cannot use an arbitration agreement or settlement agreement to prevent an…

Most collective bargaining agreements in the private sector are governed by Section 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act Section requiring a majority of employees in the bargaining unit support having a union represent them. If a majority is not in support, the employees are not in a union. In the construction industry, however, CBAs…

Despite the utility and advantages, technological advances complicate employers’ and labor unions’ collective bargaining relationship. For example, to what extent must employers bargain with unions over the introduction of technology on the jobsite, especially where new technology performs bargaining unit work or monitors bargaining unit workers performance?   Employers generally have the right to make…

The General Counsel has determined that, pursuant to the NLRB’s landmark Boeing Co. balancing test, an employer’s rule entitled “commitment to my coworkers,” which required employees to “accept responsibility for establishing and maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships,” to speak with coworkers directly and “promptly” about problems between them rather than speaking with others, to not complain…