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

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 petition) to justify an election. The union also serves the petition on the employer, along with a description of Board procedures, informing parties of their rights and obligations in the process, and a “statement of position” form.Continue Reading Employers Have New Obligations when the Union Demands Voluntary Recognition

In episode three of the Labor Law Insider podcast, Husch Blackwell attorneys Tom Godar, David Hertel and Laura Malugade note the confirmation of Jennifer Abruzzo as General Counsel as well as two new nominations to the National Labor Relations Board which, upon confirmation, will usher in a new Democratic majority on the Board. With the

On June 1, 2021, in a 5-2 decision, the Missouri Supreme Court sitting en banc affirmed a circuit court decision that voided in its entirety HB 1413, which was enacted by the Missouri legislature in 2018 and sought to change collective bargaining laws for public-sector labor organizations in the state of Missouri. We previously discussed the circuit court’s decision in our December 14, 2020 post, Missouri Supreme Court to Decide Constitutionality of Public Reform Law. While the circuit court decision permanently enjoined the Missouri State Board of Mediation and Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations from implementing and enforcing the law, the law was not void with respect to entities that were not parties to the litigation—until the Missouri Supreme Court released its decision. As of June 1, 2020, HB 1413 is void in its entirety with respect to all entities in Missouri.
Continue Reading Missouri Supreme Court Voids 2018 Missouri Public Reform Law

In this week’s edition of our “Funny You Should Ask” series, Tom Godar and Terry Potter discuss whether there’s a need to bargain before imposing a mandate that employees are fully  vaccinated against COVID-19 before reporting to work: https://www.healthcarelawinsights.com/2021/05/funny-you-should-ask-is-a-vaccine-mandate-subject-of-bargaining/

Hospitals and non-acute care settings beware: Micro-Units are about to make their way back into Healthcare Union organizing. Over the coming months, we can expect to see many significant changes to labor issues affecting healthcare and other sectors of our marketplace. The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) is almost certain to reinstate the standards of what constitutes an appropriate bargaining unit as set forth in a 2011 case, Specialty Healthcare, allowing unions to target smaller groups of employees to organize. This case has encouraged Union organizing of Micro-Units in various settings, especially healthcare. The Board had overruled that decision in 2017, PCC Structurals, Inc., and returned to “community of interest” analysis which reviewed whether the unit employees “share a community of interest sufficiently distinct from the interest of employees excluded from the petition-for group to warrant finding that the purposed group constitutes as separate bargaining unit.”
Continue Reading Micro-Units Are Back in Healthcare Union Organizing

The National Labor Relations Board found that a union committed an unfair labor practice by repeatedly blocking ingress and egress to a hotel for periods of one to four minutes. The opinion provides details about the union’s picketing efforts as a part of an organizing campaign. The blockage occurred during at least ten separate occasions

As anticipated, the nationwide trend of enacting “right-to-work” (RTW) legislation has continued to grow – in the past few years alone, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Kentucky have joined the growing list of RTW states. In these states, and the approximately twenty others that have adopted RTW legislation, employers are prohibited from requiring employees

In SouthCoast Hospital Group, Inc. the NLRB originally found that the Hospital violated 8(a)(1) and (3) of the Act by maintaining and enforcing a hiring/transfer policy (HR 4.06) in which the Hospital gave preference to unrepresented employees over represented employees when filling positions at its non-union facilities.  The Hospital, in responding to these allegations