OSHA’s proposed heat standard — the one that would require acclimatization plans, water, rest, shade, and a pile of new recordkeeping — is stuck. The rulemaking has no finalization target, and a House bill (H.R. 6213) would bar OSHA from enforcing it at all. So employers can relax, right? Not quite. Here’s the trap. The…

The Teamsters extended a strike at Breakthru Beverage from two cities to four — not by organizing new walkouts, but by invoking a contract clause. Here’s the mechanic. Teamsters at Breakthru’s Cicero, Ill. and St. Louis locations went out on a ULP strike. When the union extended the picket line to Kansas City and Champaign,…

An administrative law judge handed Starbucks a clean sweep — dismissing an entire complaint. Employers take note of the right way to avoid NLRB scrutiny. In JD-32-26, ALJ Renée McKinney rejected every allegation tied to Starbucks’ “Heritage Market” restructuring of three Seattle stores during a 2022 organizing campaign. The General Counsel struck out on grievance-solicitation,…

A New Jersey trucking company wanted to know whether its employees still wanted their union. So it ran a secret-ballot poll to ask them. NLRB held the poll broke the law. In Layla Transportation (JD-36-26), ALJ Jeffrey Gardner found the employer violated Section 8(a)(1) by polling its Teamsters-represented employees about whether they wanted the union…

A nursing home in Davenport, Iowa just learned the answer can be no — and it cost them their best defense. UFCW Local 431 petitioned to represent about 19 RNs and LPNs at Davenport Lutheran Home. The employer’s defense was the classic: nurses can’t unionize, because they’re statutory supervisors who direct the CNAs and CMAs.…

On May 26, the D.C. Circuit upheld the Board’s finding that Vermont Information Processing (VIP) illegally fired the engineer who started a company-wide salary spreadsheet. But it vacated the findings as to three coworkers and sent those cases back. Here’s what happened. In February 2022, engineer Christopher Bendel left a bad meeting about a restructuring,…