Most people who have familiarity with labor negotiations know that claiming an “inability to pay” (or “pleading poverty”) triggers an obligation to prove the claim by allowing the union access to financial records. The line of demarcation used to be that a claim of inability to pay requires justification while a claim of “competitive disadvantage”…

A  company had a management rights clause in its collective bargaining agreement that, among other things, gave it the right to: “adopt and enforce rules and regulations and policies and procedures.” Relying on that clause, the company unilaterally adopted new work rules and a new attendance policy. It also denied the union’s request to receive…

The Board found that the discharges in Total Security met the standard established in Alan Ritchery for pre-imposition bargaining and that no such bargaining took place. The board declined, however, to order retroactive enforcement of its decision, holding that such enforcement would constitute manifest injustice. Total Security also set forth, for the first time, the…

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld the findings of the National Labor Relations Board that the employer unlawfully terminated and/or suspended a number of employees for strike-related misconduct. But, a concurring opinion notably took the NLRB to task for “the too-often cavalier and enabling approach that the Board’s decisions have taken toward the…

The NLRB voted 3-1 to revise its backpay formula for compensating workers found to have been unlawfully terminated, ordering an employer to pay for a former employee’s interim-employment and search-for-work expenses. The Board had previously treated those types of expenses as offsets that reduced the amount of interim earnings that were then subtracted from gross…

Doctor’s Associates, Inc., which is the owner and franchisor for the Subway sandwich restaurant chain entered into a Voluntary Agreement with the US Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division “as part of Subway’s broader efforts to make its franchised restaurants and overall business operations socially responsible” and as part of Subway’s “effort to…