The United Food and Commercial Workers union tried to organize workers at a Hillshire Brands Co. facility in Texas. As part of its campaign, non-employees handed out pamphlets at the end of the company’s driveway. The organizers stood on a 10-foot wide corridor designated by the city as a public right of way. The Company’s…

In July, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that a bargaining unit of just the fragrance and cosmetic employees at a Macy’s store was lawful. This ruling departed from decades-long precedent favoring a wall-to-wall bargaining unit at retail stores. In an odd procedural mandate, Macy’s was precluded from directly appealing the Board’s decision. Instead, Macy’s…

Phillips 66 maintained a policy that prohibited comments about “company operations” that could “reasonably be understood by employees to prevent them from commenting on their own wages or employment conditions or any labor dispute with their employer.” The Company argued, on the other hand, that the policy was intended to control disclosures about confidential operations.…

The National Labor Relations Board ordered reinstatement of a nurse who was fired for making vulgar sexual comments and jokes. Specifically, the Respondent hospital showed that it terminated the nurse after she “engaged in grossly offensive, profane, and intimidating workplace behavior that provoked an unprecedented number of her co-workers to complain of a hostile work…

The National Labor Relations Board recently overturned nearly 40 years of legal precedent prohibiting faculty members at religious universities from forming or joining a union because doing so could violate the religion clauses of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In another example of dramatically expanding the scope of Section 7 of the National…

A carpenter hired by Circus Circus Casinos in Las Vegas to work on guest rooms complained during a safety meeting that workers were exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke while performing work in rooms and he was concerned that this exposure could cause a positive drug test. The carpenter was later discharged for another reason and…