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The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) took significant steps to limit the power of property owners to restrict contractors’ workers access to their property in a 3-2 decision on Friday. In Bexar County II, the Board reverted to the test articulated in New York New York Hotel & Casino, 356 NLRB 907 (2011), concluding that property owners may only restrict access by contractors’ workers when the workers’ activities “significantly interfere” with the use of the property, or where the property owner has “another legitimate business reason” to remove them from their property.
Continue Reading The NLRB’s Reinstatement of a Worker-Friendly Standard for Property Access

On Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or the Board) reaffirmed its Johnnie’s Poultry standard for analyzing an employer’s questioning of employees in preparation for NLRB proceedings. Employers must provide a list of assurances to employees and the failure to recite even one of the assurances shall render such questioning per se (or automatically) unlawful.
Continue Reading NLRB Reaffirms Safeguards for Questioning Employees in Preparation for NLRB Proceedings

One day after Labor Day, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) issued a proposed rule that would rescind and replace the Trump Administration’s 2020 rule that established the current test for determining whether two entities are joint employers. Predictably, the proposed rule, if adopted by the Board, will result in more findings that two entities are joint employers. Under federal labor law, a joint employer is required to bargain with a union selected by its jointly-employed workers and may be held liable for the unfair labor practices committed by the other employer.
Continue Reading NLRB Proposes Return to a More Expansive Joint Employer Standard

In today’s episode of “They Really Made a Federal Case Out of That?” the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) rejected a union’s claim that a hotel employer was obligated to bargain its decision, or the effects of its decision, to purchase and use fluffier king size pillows in its hotel rooms. (Your tax dollars at work, my friends!)
Continue Reading Hotel Did Not Need to Bargain Over Puffier Pillows, says NLRB…

A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing officer recently recommended that the union election at an Alabama Amazon warehouse be run a second time. The hearing officer, an employee of a NLRB Regional Office, sided with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) that Amazon’s actions interfered with a fair election. Specifically, the hearing officer found that Amazon’s installation of an unmarked mailbox as a ballot drop-site that was within the view of company surveillance cameras, hiring of private police, threatening of employees, and changing county traffic lights (come on, how many companies have the pull to get county traffic lights changed?) to impede RWDSU access to voters amounted to objectionable conduct.
Continue Reading NLRB Hearing Officer Recommends Second Union Election at Amazon – But Will It Happen?

On August 12, 2021, the recently confirmed General Counsel (GC) of the National Labor Relations Board, Jennifer Abruzzo, issued her first official memo. Per an NLRB press release, GC Memo 21-04 “lays out a clear agenda…on some priorities of the Office of the General Counsel.” The memo directs NLRB field offices to submit cases addressing issues identified in the memo to the Regional Advice Branch of the Office of the General Counsel. Typically, such submissions are the first step on the path to overturning existing case law that a sitting GC seeks to change.
Continue Reading New NLRB General Counsel Signals Major Changes Ahead

As our two major political parties wage battle in statehouses around the country regarding the ways in which citizens cast their votes, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seems primed to implement electronic voting (“e-voting”) in union elections. E-voting has long been on Labor’s wish list. As we transition out of a pandemic that significantly reduced the number of manual (read: in-person, onsite) representation elections, it appears that the Democratic-controlled Board and Congress are prepared to dedicate resources to add an e-voting system to the Board’s manual and mail-ballot election processes.
Continue Reading E-Voting in Union Elections at the NLRB?

One of the many services we provide to our clients is training on how to respond effectively to union organizing activity. In short, we provide the do’s and don’ts of how to respond lawfully to a union’s efforts to organize an employer’s workforce. During these trainings, we often stress the fine line dividing lawful and unlawful statements and conduct.
Continue Reading Here’s What Not to Do When Faced With Union Organizing Activity

Oh, the irony! The National Labor Relations Board – the federal agency charged with enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, which is the law that governs the relationship between unions and management, and includes the obligation to bargain in good faith – is being accused of failing to bargain in good faith! By its own union!
Continue Reading NLRB Is Refusing to Bargain in Good Faith with Its Own Union?

On July 21, 2020, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) issued what it described as “a long overdue” decision eliminating unwarranted protection for employees who engage in obscene, racist, and sexually harassing behavior under the guise of protected concerted activity.
Continue Reading NLRB Catches Up To The #MeToo and #BLM Movements