One drew brighter lines on union membership in nursing homes, a second set limits on when unions could sue before a representation election and the third reverses a Bush administration NLRB ruling that made decertification of unions easier.
The decisions set up clearer boundaries for who can be organized and also when a union can go to court before a vote. And firms will have to return to the old rules about trying to oust unions from the workplace.
The most wide-ranging of the three involved nursing home workers. The Specialty Health Care and Rehabilitation Center in Mobile, Ala., argued that a proposed unit among 53 certified nursing assistants there was too small. It said the unit should include 33 other workers, such as cooks, schedulers and recreational staffers.
Firms commonly try to expand and dilute bargaining units before elections, to defeat organizing drives.
The nursing home based its argument in the Steelworkers’ organizing drive on the board’s 1991 Park Manor nursing home decision, which first set standards for what bargaining units should look like in nursing homes and other non-hospital health care firms. The NLRB, by a 3-1 vote, led by Liebman, said Park Manor is out of date.
“Employees at such facilities will now be subject to the same ‘community-of-interest’ standard the board traditionally applied at other workplaces,” the agency said in announcing the decision. It said the CNAs are a separate unit that should be allowed to vote by themselves and told the regional director to schedule an election.
“We have concluded the Park Manor approach to determining if a proposed bargaining unit in a nursing home is an appropriate unit has become obsolete, is not consistent with our statutory charge, and has not provided clear guidance to interested parties or the board,” Liebman wrote on Aug. 26, the day before her term ended.
The second decision, which the Steelworkers also won on Aug. 26, reversed a Bush board ruling that in turn overturned 41 years of precedent on when dissenting workers could file a decertification petition to oust the union.
The Bush-named board, over Liebman’s protests, ruled in 2007 that dissenters could file a decertification petition within the first 45 days of the union’s certification if the union won via voluntary recognition, or card-check. That ruling, the Dana case, also ordered employers to post notices about the voluntary recognition, virtually inviting dissenters to start decert campaigns even before the union had a chance to negotiate a contract.
The 2007 Dana decision was, in so many words, unjustified, the majority said, 2-1, in the new case, involving Lamons Gasket Co. of Houston and the Steelworkers.
“We granted review to consider the experiences of employers, employees, unions, and the board under Dana,” the Lamons Gasket decision said. After reading the record, briefs from the Steelworkers and the company, and friend-of-the-court briefs, plus the factual results of what happened after Dana, “We find that the approach taken in Dana was flawed, factually, legally, and as a matter of policy.
“Accordingly, we overrule Dana and return to the previously well-established rule barring an election petition for a reasonable period of time after voluntary recognition of a representative (union) designated by a majority of employees,” the NLRB said.
“In no other context does the board require that employees be given notice of their right to change their minds about a recent exercise of statutory rights,” the board added of the right-to-decert notice the Dana decision also required.
The third case involved Teamsters Local 70 in Oakland. It was organizing truck drivers at Sericycle, Inc., a San Leandro medical waste collection firm. But the union also introduced 16 of the drivers to an outside attorney, who then sued Sericycle for unpaid wages. The union paid for the suit, before the representation election. That’s not kosher, the NLRB said. It ordered a rerun of the local’s election win.
“Unions can inform employees about their rights, assist them in identifying violations, urge them to seek relief, and even refer them to competent counsel without casting into question subsequent election results,” the majority wrote. Lawyers can sue on behalf of the workers as individuals, “even during the critical period, so long as the union does not fund the litigation directly or indirectly, and the lawyers are acting solely in the interest of their employee clients, not as the union’s agents.”
This article was written by Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
One drew brighter lines on union membership in nursing homes, a second set limits on when unions could sue before a representation election and the third reverses a Bush administration NLRB ruling that made decertification of unions easier.
The decisions set up clearer boundaries for who can be organized and also when a union can go to court before a vote. And firms will have to return to the old rules about trying to oust unions from the workplace.
The most wide-ranging of the three involved nursing home workers. The Specialty Health Care and Rehabilitation Center in Mobile, Ala., argued that a proposed unit among 53 certified nursing assistants there was too small. It said the unit should include 33 other workers, such as cooks, schedulers and recreational staffers.
Firms commonly try to expand and dilute bargaining units before elections, to defeat organizing drives.
The nursing home based its argument in the Steelworkers’ organizing drive on the board’s 1991 Park Manor nursing home decision, which first set standards for what bargaining units should look like in nursing homes and other non-hospital health care firms. The NLRB, by a 3-1 vote, led by Liebman, said Park Manor is out of date.
“Employees at such facilities will now be subject to the same ‘community-of-interest’ standard the board traditionally applied at other workplaces,” the agency said in announcing the decision. It said the CNAs are a separate unit that should be allowed to vote by themselves and told the regional director to schedule an election.
“We have concluded the Park Manor approach to determining if a proposed bargaining unit in a nursing home is an appropriate unit has become obsolete, is not consistent with our statutory charge, and has not provided clear guidance to interested parties or the board,” Liebman wrote on Aug. 26, the day before her term ended.
The second decision, which the Steelworkers also won on Aug. 26, reversed a Bush board ruling that in turn overturned 41 years of precedent on when dissenting workers could file a decertification petition to oust the union.
The Bush-named board, over Liebman’s protests, ruled in 2007 that dissenters could file a decertification petition within the first 45 days of the union’s certification if the union won via voluntary recognition, or card-check. That ruling, the Dana case, also ordered employers to post notices about the voluntary recognition, virtually inviting dissenters to start decert campaigns even before the union had a chance to negotiate a contract.
The 2007 Dana decision was, in so many words, unjustified, the majority said, 2-1, in the new case, involving Lamons Gasket Co. of Houston and the Steelworkers.
“We granted review to consider the experiences of employers, employees, unions, and the board under Dana,” the Lamons Gasket decision said. After reading the record, briefs from the Steelworkers and the company, and friend-of-the-court briefs, plus the factual results of what happened after Dana, “We find that the approach taken in Dana was flawed, factually, legally, and as a matter of policy.
“Accordingly, we overrule Dana and return to the previously well-established rule barring an election petition for a reasonable period of time after voluntary recognition of a representative (union) designated by a majority of employees,” the NLRB said.
“In no other context does the board require that employees be given notice of their right to change their minds about a recent exercise of statutory rights,” the board added of the right-to-decert notice the Dana decision also required.
The third case involved Teamsters Local 70 in Oakland. It was organizing truck drivers at Sericycle, Inc., a San Leandro medical waste collection firm. But the union also introduced 16 of the drivers to an outside attorney, who then sued Sericycle for unpaid wages. The union paid for the suit, before the representation election. That’s not kosher, the NLRB said. It ordered a rerun of the local’s election win.
“Unions can inform employees about their rights, assist them in identifying violations, urge them to seek relief, and even refer them to competent counsel without casting into question subsequent election results,” the majority wrote. Lawyers can sue on behalf of the workers as individuals, “even during the critical period, so long as the union does not fund the litigation directly or indirectly, and the lawyers are acting solely in the interest of their employee clients, not as the union’s agents.”
This article was written by Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.