The Labor Law Insider: Forget the Election: Union Representation Without the Messy Election is the Next Labor Law Reality, Part II
The United Auto Workers won a potentially momentum-shifting organizing victory last week. In a secret ballot election conducted by the NLRB at a Chattanooga, Tennessee Volkswagen plant, nearly 75% of the putative bargaining...more
Husch Blackwell partners Tom O’Day and Tyler Paetkau join Labor Law Insider host Tom Godar in Part II of this discussion of the impact of new Cemex decision by the NLRB. Suddenly, minor violations of the National Labor...more
As we recently discussed, the National Labor Relation Board’s (“NLRB”) monumental ruling in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, 327 NLRB No. 130 (2023), is going to have a significant impact on the manner in which...more
In its recent Cemex Construction decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) abandoned two fundamental rules enshrined in Supreme Court case law. Both of those Supreme Court decisions prioritized secret ballot...more
On August 25, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a decision that significantly narrows employers’ options in contesting union organizing efforts through secret ballot elections. The case, Cemex...more
On Friday, August 25, 2023, The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a highly anticipated decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC which fundamentally shifts the paradigm governing how unions organize...more
As we previously reported in April 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) General Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, asked the Board to revive the Joy Silk doctrine (which was rejected in 1969) and require...more
On Friday, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) overturned 50 years of labor law and severely limited the right of employers to insist on a secret ballot election. In Cemex Construction Materials...more
The NLRB just drastically changed how employers can respond to union recognition demands by creating a new framework that will determine when employers are required to bargain with unions without a representation election....more
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reversed over fifty years of established precedent on August 25, 2023, when it decided to overrule its 1971 decision in Linden Lumber and reinstate a modified version of its 1949 Joy...more
Under a typical election scenario, a union files an election petition with the Board’s Regional Office, along with a “showing of interest” demonstrating enough employee support (at least 30% of the unit described in the...more
Governor Newsom recently signed a bill into law clarifying that a single alternative to the traditional secret ballot method – an alternative known as the “card check” election – may be used for unions to organize at...more
Through its decisions, the five-member National Labor Relations Board interprets the National Labor Relations Act. These decisions set rules that regulate unionized and non-unionized workplaces, including the relationship...more
Voluntary recognition of a union as the exclusive bargaining representative for employees within an identified bargaining unit of the employer can have potentially game-changing consequences for an employer. However, if the...more
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo recently called for overturning fifty years of precedent that allows employees to decide via a vote whether to have a union represent them for collective...more
An employer can generally refuse a union’s demand for recognition and insist on a secret ballot vote, according to established federal labor law authority, but relying on this authority seems somewhat risky at the moment. For...more
1. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel (GC) filed a brief seeking to expand unions’ right to obtain recognition from employers based on signed authorization cards alone, without the need for a Board...more
The general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (the Board), Jennifer Abruzzo, on April 11, 2022, filed a brief in a case pending before the NLRB, Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, 28-CA-230115 et al.,...more
In contravention of decades-old precedent, employers may be required to recognize unions without a secret ballot election, thereby denying employers the opportunity to protect the private choice of their employees. The...more
Executive Summary: On April 11, 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo (“Abruzzo”) filed a brief in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, petitioning the Board to...more
On April 11, 2022, the National Labor Relations Board’s General Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, filed a brief in a case pending before the NLRB, Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, seeking a return to the NLRB’s long-abandoned...more
The National Labor Relations Board’s (“NLRB” or the “Board”) General Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, is attempting to revive unions’ ability to win recognition from employers without a secret ballot election. In a brief filed...more
The Biden administration is deploying a number of initiatives in its ongoing efforts “to be the most pro-union administration in American history” – but the current effort to resurrect the decades-old Joy Silk doctrine, which...more
With Congress failing to make the organizing process easier for unions, the NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is now asking the Board to require employers to recognize unions without a secret ballot election. As...more
Employers across the country may, in the near future, face a unionized workforce even though their employees are denied the opportunity to vote in a secret ballot election. Under current law, an employer presented with...more