The General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, Peter Robb, recently issued two General Counsel Memos dealing primarily with union obligations under the National Labor Relations Act. I expect the Board to adopt the GC’s recommended positions. In GC 19-04, Robb wants to overturn current law requiring unions to disclose only the percentage reduction…

Accretion petitions filed with the NLRB allow unions to add employees to an existing bargaining unit without a representation election. This helps preserve industrial stability by allowing adjustments in bargaining units when new jobs are created, without requiring an adversarial election. This has historically been applied narrowly because it infringes on an employee’s right to…

A security contractor lawfully could silence a worker’s union representatives during an investigative interview and control when the representatives could speak. The manager who conducted the investigative interview quieted everyone – both management and union officials alike, in a seven-person meeting that had become unruly. The company’s steps to control a meeting did not violate…

The American Municipal Power, Inc. bargaining unit consisted of all full-time and regular part-time operators employed at the new Kentucky plant. At issue was whether that definition improperly included operators temporarily assigned to the plant from other facilities. AMP sought to limit the definition to only employees primarily assigned to the plant. The Board refused…

The National Labor Relations Board recently reaffirmed “entrepreneurial opportunity” as an important factor in weighing independent contractor status. Traditionally, the Board considered all of the relevant common law agency factors, including whether the parties believed they were creating a master-servant relationship, the extent of the company’s control over the details of the work, the extent…

Strikes take two forms: “economic” and “unfair labor practice.” Economic strikes are work stoppages to protest wages, hours, working conditions, or other mandatory subjects of bargaining. By contrast, unfair labor practice strikes are a work stoppage to protest an unfair labor practice committed by an employer. The right to strike is not limited to employees…