Employers in the United States received a significant win on March 8, 2024, when a federal court in Texas struck down the National Labor Relations Board’s (“Board”) expansive new “joint employer” rule, and upheld the existing (and more employer-friendly) 2020 rule. This rule would have expanded the circumstances under which two businesses could be designated as “joint employers,” and that could have significantly altered the legal landscape attendant to various workplace relationships.
Adam Doerr
With a strong background in management defense and traditional labor law, Adam advises clients on union avoidance, union relations, union contract administration, unfair labor practice allegations, collective bargaining negotiations, contract administration and grievance investigations. In addition to providing day-to-day counsel, he regularly represents employers in National Labor Relations Board proceedings and arbitrations, as well as in litigation in both state and federal courts.
The Labor Law Insider – Decertification of Union Bargaining Unit: What’s Happening Today, Part II
In this episode of the Labor Law Insider, attorneys Adam Doerr, Trecia Moore, and host Tom Godar continue their discussion of decertification petitions, focusing on some of the practical implications related to decertification efforts, including:
- Employees who are frustrated with their union representative may be stymied by the complex decertification process, and the
The Labor Law Insider – Decertification of Union Bargaining Unit: What’s Happening Today, Part I
In this episode of the Labor Law Insider podcast, our host, Tom Godar, is joined by Husch Blackwell attorneys Adam Doerr and Trecia Moore to discuss union decertification.
- In 2022 there were approximately 1,700 petitions for election filed before the NLRB, and about 300 of these were filed by employees to decertify their bargaining
National Labor Relations Board Overrules Boeing With Strict Scrutiny of Handbook Rules
On August 2, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) issued its anticipated ruling in Stericycle, Inc., reversing the Trump-era Boeing decision that famously implemented a three-category test for balancing whether workplace rules unlawfully interfered with employees’ rights to engage in “protected concerted activity” under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or the “Act”).
NLRB Provides Employees Extra Leeway to Use Offensive Language
On May 1, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued its decision in Lion Elastomers and United Steelworkers, making it more difficult for employers to discipline employees for outbursts and similar misconduct while employees are engaged in protected concerted activity under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”).
Union Support Reaches Generational High-Water Mark as Union Election Petitions Surge
According to a recent Gallup poll, 71 percent of Americans “approve of labor unions,” up three percentage points from 2021.
This represents a generational high-water mark for union support – the last time Gallup measured a higher union approval rating among the American public was 1959 when 73 Americans approved of labor unions. Prior to this year, union support had remained lower than 70% ever since union support dropped to 66 percent in 1967. The low-water mark was reached in 2009 when unions enjoyed only 48% support from the American public.
NLRB Mandates National Dress Code
On August 29, 2022, the NLRB issued its decision in Tesla, Inc., overruling precedent that allowed employers to enforce facially-neutral dress codes to prohibit wearing non-conforming attire, including union insignia and union logos. Now, employers must allow employees to wear union attire absent a showing of “special circumstances.”
NLRB Seeks to Reduce Company Speech About Unions
It has become increasingly apparent that the Biden Administration’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is aggressively pushing labor-friendly positions, like those seen under the Obama Administration.
Now it appears the NLRB’s General Counsel has taken aim at Section 8(c) of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act), and in so doing undermines 75 years of jurisprudence as “incorrectly concluded.”
On April 7, 2022, the NLRB announced the General Counsel’s desire to restrict employers’ ability to speak to their employees about unions, whether in so-called “captive audience” meetings, or whether “cornered by management while performing their job duties.” The General Counsel claims such meetings and conversations “inherently involve an unlawful threat that employees will be disciplined or suffer other reprisals if they exercise their protected right not to listen to such speech.”
Biden Executive Order Requires Project Labor Agreements on “Large-Scale Construction Projects”
On February 4, 2022, President Biden issued Executive Order 14063, requiring certain federal construction contractors and subcontractors “to negotiate or become party to a project labor agreement with one or more appropriate labor organizations.”
The EO’s Project Labor Agreement (PLA) requirement applies to “large-scale construction projects,” defined to include domestic federal construction projects “for…
NLRB General Counsel’s Wish List: Reverse the Trump Board
After President Biden won the November 2020 general election, nobody really expected the National Labor Relations Board’s (“NLRB’s”) employer-friendly doctrines to survive the new Administration. And they won’t.