The National Labor Relations Board just severely restricted the law that gives employers the right to permanently replace economic strikers. In its American Baptist Homes decision the Board ruled that it is unlawful for an employer to hire permanent striker replacements where any part of the intent of that decision is to harm the union.…

An employer is only allowed to bargain with a union that has proven it represents a majority of employees in an appropriate bargaining unit. Otherwise the company violates the law by recognizing a non-majority union. This rule on majority status is tricky. If a company thinks a union has lost its majority status it is…

A company announced its intent to make changes to existing policies, specifically, its work rules, absenteeism policy, and progressive discipline policy, which were maintained outside of the collective bargaining agreement. Upon learning of this, the union asked to meet and requested information regarding the proposed changes. The company agreed to the meeting, but made clear…

In Boch Honda the employer maintained a handbook policy that prohibited customer-facing employees from wearing, among other things “message” pins. NLRB ALJ determined that the employer’s interests in workplace safety and preventing damage to vehicles met the special circumstances standard and justified the ban. As it’s prone to do, the NLRB reversed the ALJ and determined…

The key issue that could arise out of the Miller & Anderson ruling isn’t necessarily its effect on collective bargaining or union organizing efforts, but rather on how any eventual collective bargaining agreements are used. What’s to stop a union from using a CBA as evidence that employers are joint employers? According to one article…

NLRB Tightens its Joint Employer Standard In 1984 the NLRB issued a decision known as TLI, Inc. that set the standard of when it would find two or more companies to be joint employers. There, joint-employment would only be found when both entities actually exercised direct or immediate control over the employment of the same workers.…