Management Memo

On Wednesday, the Senate narrowly confirmed John Ring, a management-side labor attorney from Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP, to the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”).  With this vote, Ring fills the last remaining open seat on the Board, which was previously held by former Chairman Philip Miscimarra.  Ring’s term will expire on December 16, 2022.  The confirmation vote of 50-48 was largely down party lines, with only two Democrats voting in favor of Ring’s confirmation.  The strong opposition from the Democrats is likely due to the perceived efforts of the ...

In the months following Donald Trump’s inauguration, those interested in the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) waited anxiously for the new President to fill key positions that would allow the Board to reconsider many of the actions of the past eight years. Over the last six months, the Board has begun to revisit, and overrule, several union-friendly and pro-employee Obama-era Board decisions. The Board’s new General Counsel has also given clear guidance as to where else employers can expect to see his office pursue further changes in how the National ...

The DC Circuit Court, in its August 11th decision in Rhino Northwest, LLC v NLRB has found that the NLRB’s 2011 Specialty Healthcare decision revisiting the Board’s standards for determining whether a bargaining unit a union seeks to represent is appropriate, where the employer claims in excludes other classifications of employees who share a community of interest with the petitioned for employees, is supported by the National Labor Relations Act and that the “overwhelming community of interest” standard that the Board adopted in that case is entitled to deference and ...

The NLRB finds that the women’s shoe sales employees at Bergdorf Goodman’s New York Store are not an appropriate unit for bargaining. The Board’s unanimous decision to reverse the Regional Director’s finding that the shoe sales team did constitute an appropriate unit and could have their own vote on union representation comes one week after its decision finding that a unit limited to the cosmetics and fragrance sales employees at a Macy’s in Saugus were an appropriate unit for bargaining. The Regional Directors who issued the Decisions and Directions of Election in ...

The New York Times reported today in its business section in article by Steven Greenhouse, who covers labor matters for the paper, about a convention taking place in Addison. The convention is underwritten by the Service Employees International Union or SEIU, which has been not very quietly backing the “Stand for Fifteen,” movement in its quest for wages of $15 per hour in the fast food field.  It is probably not a coincidence that Addison is just four miles from McDonald’s headquarters in Oak Brook, Il.

While most of last week’s focus in labor relations law was on the NLRB’s ...