Browsing articles tagged with " NLRB"
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Oct 4, 2007
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We Didn’t Realize the NLRB was THAT Management Friendly…


Getting off the bus to get to work this morning, there was a giant, inflatable rat outside an office building in the loop. This is not that unusual (especially here in the Chi), it just means a union is striking outside a job site.

Some things about this particular strike seemed odd, though. For one thing, the picketers were in collared shirts and slacks – some were wearing suits. We don’t know of any unions with strike-wear dress codes (though there may be something to that…). Then there was the fact that the strike was outside the University Club building – which is a typical breakfast meeting/cle event locale for attorneys…

Then we noticed the signs – “NLRB: Practice What You Preach.”

That’s right, folks – the National Labor Relations Board Union is currently picketing the NLRB for failure to recognize it as a certified bargaining unit. Right now, all we’ve got is the strike flyer, so our information is understandably one-sided (and scant)[ed. note: see updates below]. But we have an email in to the Union directors and we’re going to try to contact someone at the Board to get a reaction.

Here’s what we know:
[ed. note - see new post here]
- This appears to be a national issue – the flyer quotes Ronald Meisburg, the NLRB General Counsel, as saying “I am refusing to bargain over conditions of employment.” (which, whoa – hopefully not, you know? That’s pretty much the ballgame)
- The FLRA did apparently certify a bargaining unit, and they did issue a ULP against the Board (that’s irony, right?) – according to the union flyer.

If there’s something else you know – or want to know – put it in the comments or email us, and we’ll get on it.

[UPDATE: 10:23 am] – A little google searching led us to this Press Release from August that we think is the foundation for today’s activity. Apparently the NLRB Union petitioned the FLRA to combine some previously separate units, which it did. Then GC Meisburg emailed employees saying he wouldn’t bargain with the newly combined unit. The union picketed (we think in New York) in August. The Release goes on to promise more:

Union sources said this would not be the last demonstration demanding
Meisburg’s resignation. They indicated that the Union has plans to picket
at other public events Meisburg attends and will continue until he either
resigns or agrees to obey the law.

So is that why they’re at the University Club? Is GC Meisburg gracing us in the Windy City with his presence? Looks like we may have to crash a party or two this morning…

[UPDATE: 11:44 am] – Ok. We’ve been doing some digging, and it seems like maybe we’re a little late to this party. The Union’s picketed in a few places, and caused the New Jersey regional office to cancel its 50th Birthday celebration in September by promising to picket Meisburg’s presence at the event. Bob Gilson at FedSmith (where we found the Press Release) has a series of articles explaining the history of this sordid, labor law love-triangle, which is 90% assured of making its way into court. Needless to say, we’re on pins and needles.

Expect a full post on this mess later in the day.
[UPDATE: Ok, so later in the day actually means four days later or so, but here's the promised post, for those still interested.] Any more updates on today’s picketing will be tacked on here.

The text of the strike flyer appears after the jump.

Here’s the Text of the Flyer:

National Labor Relations Board
Refuses to Obey Federal Labor Law

On August 19, 2007, the Federal Labor Relations Authority issued an unfair labor practice complaint alleging that the National Labor Relations Board violated its obligation under federal labor law to bargain with the National Labor Relations Board Union, the union of NLRB employees, in the bargaining unit certified by the FLRA.

NLRB:
- Refuses to recognize the certified bargaining unit of its own employees
- Refuses to bargain with the Union
- Ignores FLRA decision
- Violates federal labor law
- DISRESPECTS ITS OWN EMPLOYEES!!

NLRB General Counsel Ronald Meisburg, the chief enforcer of the National Labor RElations Act, told its employees, “I am refusing to bargain over conditions of employment.” He has told employees that he will not obey the federal labor law. He has said that he will refuse to bargain with the Union in the bargaining unit certified by the FLRA.

The NLRB is violating the law by refusing to bargain with the Union. If the NLRB does not honor the rights of its own employees, how can employees count on the Board to protect THEIR rights?

WE DEMAND
THAT THE NLRB OBEY THE LAW AND
BARGAIN WITH THE UNION!

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD UNION

Updates will come before the jump.

Uncategorized
Jul 19, 2007
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NLRB: Less “Of the Earth”, More “In the Wound”

The NLRB has changed its rules to disfavor “salting” campaigns. Shocker, we know.

But to do it without being asked, in the headwind of a still-young Supreme Court decision protecting salts under the NLRA is pretty ballsy, you have to admit.

Salts, of course, are the much-maligned folks that seek employment at non-union shops for the express purposes of unionizing the company’s workforce. They have the protection of the NLRA, according to the Supreme Court (well, the old one at least), but now the Board has changed the burden of proof in cases where companies refused or fired a salt. From now on (if that phrase is ever applicable to the NLRB), if a salt is going to get back pay for a company’s refusal to give him a job, his union will have to prove that he was planning to stay after he was done, ahem, “seasoning”.

The salting process is typically thought of like this: the union assigns a salt to a particular company. The salt then applies to the company, who either hires him or turns him down. If the salt gets hired, he attempts to unionize the company’s workforce and then moves on to another company as assigned by the union. If the employer refuses to hire a salt, or fires him when they find out why he’s really there, the salt files a refusal-to-hire or unlawful discharge claim with the NLRB, bringing the company’s non-union stance into the fore.

It is deception at its greatest, as far as most non-union companies are concerned. But to the unions, salting may represent their only real chance to gain access to a closed shop.

So, here’s the situation – When an employee is fired, or wrongfully refused a job, he or she is entitled to backpay for the period starting at the employer’s unlawful act (the firing) and going until the act is remedied, usually by an offer of reinstatement. The presumption was that, if hired or retained, the employee would have continued working at the shop for an indefinite period of time. The burden is squarely on the employer’s shoulders to prove why that isn’t the case.

In ’95, the Supreme Court held that salts are protected employees under the NLRA. That means that refusing to hire one of them, or firing one of them, should carry the same consequences as any other employee, right? Here’s where we pick up our most recent Board decision, already in progress:

The Board, in Oil Capitol Sheet Metal, Inc., 349 NLRB No. 118, decided that – for salts – the backpay presumption just doesn’t work. According to the Board, “rote application of the presumption has resulted in backpay awards that bear no rational relationship to the period of time a salt would have remained employed with a targeted nonunion employer.”

The majority (it’s a 3-2 decision) admits that there are times where a union could leave a salt in his position after the salting campaign, but claims that it should be the union’s job to prove it – not the employer’s to prove the salt would leave.

What’s the problem with all of this? Well, according to the dissent, the biggest problem is that nobody asked the Board to reconsider the issue. So, in the face of a Supreme Court decision, and without prompting from any of the parties, the Board has turned 180 degrees in its treatments of salting campaigns. It’s telling that, in referencing the Supreme Court’s holding that salts are people too (to paraphrase a little), the majority makes it clear that SCOTUS displayed “considerable deference accorded to the Board’s interpretation of the Act”. I was trained in my labor law class to take this as a sign to the Circuits that they should reconsider the issue. Is the Board trying to fire a case up to the Supremes now that their ranks have shifted?

So, now here’s the question – is the change in policy justified? Given the nature of salting, isn’t it better to presume the employee is temporary? It is a pretty big burden on the employer to prove a negative, but they still have to do it in wrongful discharge cases of non-salt employees, so is that really a good justification for the change?

Oil Capitol – via Law Memo

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“Businesses are made by people.”

-Gerry Harvey

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