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…

By now, it is no secret that unionization rates in the United States have fallen each year for the past 30 years. This decrease in union membership results in a lessened need for the National Labor Relations Board, whose sole purpose is to govern labor and management relations. In fact, today the Board is presiding…

In 1984 the NLRB held that it should defer action if the contractual issue under a collective bargaining agreement is “factually parallel” to an unfair labor practice issue, an arbitrator is presented with relevant facts to resolve the issue, and an arbitration award is not “clearly repugnant” to the National Labor Relations Act. Thirty years…

Seven different unions were negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with a single employer. While bargaining for the 2011 agreement, everyone agreed to exclude newly hired workers from an established pension plan, but did not discuss the “Copper Price Bonus” or workers’ eligibility for it. The bonus was kept in place in the 2011 version of…

A company held employee meetings every Friday. No big deal. However, at the meeting held six days before a union election, the company, for the first time, gave the employees pizza, large bonus checks and/or gift cards. The company won the election causing the union to file objections alleging improper interference by the company. The…