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 ...

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 ...

My colleague Barry A. Guryan published a Health Employment And Labor (HEAL) blog post that will be of interest to many of our readers: “NLRB Extends “Specialty Healthcare” to Acute Care Hospitals: Carves Unit into Multiple Smaller Pieces.”

Following is an excerpt:

Ever since 1974, when the NLRB (“Board”) first took jurisdiction over health care institutions, the Board has paid particular attention to the impact of union organizing on the delivery of healthcare in this industry in general  and of acute care hospitals in particular.  When the Act was first amended in ...