Here’s a role reversal. In a Region 19 election, the employer asked for a mail ballot and the union demanded an in-person vote. The Regional Director sided with the employer. Foss Maritime runs tug and mooring operations out of Seattle and Tacoma. The Inlandboatmen’s Union (an ILWU affiliate) petitioned to represent a tiny unit —…

Two recent decisions, same theme: judges are done deferring to the Board. First, emergency injunctions. After the Supreme Court’s McKinney ruling, the NLRB can’t just presume harm when it asks a court for 10(j) relief. The Sixth Circuit drove it home in the Trinity Health case — the Board now needs evidence of concrete, immediate…

The NLRB just pierced the corporate veil and put a newspaper owner personally on the hook for $3.6 million. Last week the Board granted a default judgment against Ampersand Publishing, the company behind the Santa Barbara News-Press, and its sole owner Wendy McCaw. The combined liability: $3,602,579 in backpay, expenses, and bargaining costs owed to…

A new owner took over a Parsippany hotel and tried to leave the union at the door. The NLRB just told him it doesn’t work that way. (Shhh… sometimes it can work that way. I know. I’ve done it dozens of times.) The Board affirmed that Fairfield Parsippany, which took over a Fairfield Inn &…

A federal monitorship that started in 1989 is about to end. The Teamsters and the DOJ jointly asked a judge this week to wind down the oversight that began to “eliminate organized crime influence within the union.” The plan: cut the Independent Investigations Officer role in December, sunset the Independent Review Officer in three years.…

The Department of Labor just finalized a rule making the biggest unions open their books wider — the first real modernization of the Form LM-2 since 2003. Quick background. Under the LMRDA, larger unions file an annual financial disclosure, the LM-2, laying out assets, spending, and salaries. The new rule from the Office of Labor-Management…