Withdrawing recognition is one way to get rid of a union, but it is a complex legal maneuver best left to the professionals (me). The employer here seemed to have properly withdrawn recognition from the union by, among other things, having employees express a current intent to terminate their membership within the union. However, the…

Resident physicians at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, N.Y. sought to unionize and relied on an NLRB decision holding that resident physicians are employees within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. The Hospital, relying on a separate Board decision, argued that the residents were more akin to graduate students, not employees, and thus…

In Flex Frac Logistics, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld an NLRB finding that an employee confidentiality agreement’s provision prohibiting employees from disclosing “financial information” and “personnel information and documents” to anyone outside the company violated the National Labor Relations Act. Though the agreement did not explicitly prohibit the disclosure of…

Representative Martha Roby (R-AL) is concerned that the U.S. Department of Labor is targeting Southern vehicle and auto-parts manufacturers because of their failure to unionize. Southern automotive manufacturers are now subject to in-depth inspections as part of an OSHA regional emphasis program. This increased scrutiny comes a year after the agency announced union representatives may…

When an employer held a pre-disciplinary investigative interview of an employee for possible fraudulent Medicaid billing and timekeeping practices, a coworker who served as the union steward attended the interview as the employee’s Weingarten representative. During the interview, the union steward repeatedly asked the employer to explain the purpose of the questioning, and the union steward…

Region 7 of the NLRB in Detroit, Michigan issued a complaint, alleging that the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) violated Section the NLRA by restraining and coercing Walmart employees during a 2012 Black Friday protest at a store in Dearborn, Michigan. According to the complaint, an organizing director for UFCW Local 876 and…