Labor Relations Today : Labor & Employment Lawyers & Attorneys : Contract Administration, Collective Bargaining

Earlier this week, the National Labor Relations Act celebrated its 75th anniversary.  Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis marked the occasion by calling for an expansion of collective bargaining in the Huffington Post:

Collective bargaining helped create our middle class. Working people were able to share in the gains of their productivity and labor and management together forged creative solutions to create the powerful engine of the American economy we all are proud of.

In order to rebuild the middle class today, we need to level the playing field for all working people and update our labor laws to fit the 21st century workplace. That's why the President and I support the Employee Free Choice Act - which would update the NLRA so workers can form unions if they choose to without fear or pressure. In addition, millions of workers are not covered by the NLRA including public sector workers, farm workers, domestic workers, and more - so other laws, like the Public Safety Cooperation Act would ensure that firefighters and other public servants have a voice on the job, too.

Some people say that given the state of the economy, we can't afford unions right now. They've got it backwards.

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Now that the National Labor Relations Board is at full strength for the first time in two-and-a-half years, earlier today, the Board issued some guidance regarding how it intends to handle cases remanded in light of the Supreme Court’s New Process Steel decision.  Between December 2007 and March 2010, the Board's only two Members -- current Chairman Wilma Liebman and Member Peter Schaumber -- continued to issue decisions on behalf of the Board.  They decided nearly 600 cases on which they could agree, while holding aside all others for future Board action.

On June 17, 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that the two Members lacked the authority to act on behalf of the Board, effectively rendering all of those Orders invalid.  According to the Board's statement today: 

At the time of the June 17 Supreme Court decision, 96 of the two-member decisions were pending on appeal before the federal courts – six at the Supreme Court and 90 in various Courts of Appeals. The Board is seeking to have each of these cases remanded to the Board for further consideration.

Each of the remanded cases will be considered by a three-member panel of the Board which will include Chairman Liebman and Board Member Schaumber. Consistent with Board practice, the two other Board members not on the panel will have the opportunity to participate in the case if they so desire.

It is unclear at this time how many of the two-member Board rulings not already challenged in the federal appellate courts can or will be contested and how many may now be moot.

Additional commentary:

• "The NLRB's Plan in Wake of New Process Steel" -- Workplace Prof Blog
• "Second Circuit denies NLRB petition in light of New Process Steel" -- Justin F. Keith, Greenberg Traurig (via Lexology)

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We started EFCA Report back in January 2009 – after blogging elsewhere on the topic for years – in an effort to keep the management community well-apprised of the bill’s progress as events developed. Over the course of that year-and-a-half, over 12,500 viewers have turned repeatedly to EFCA Report for news, resources, insights and management perspectives on the proposed Employee Free Choice Act.  

In mid-April, the publishers of EFCA Report launched Labor Relations Today, in an effort to bring the same level of quality and insight to the broader range of labor relations issues facing employers in the current political and legal environment. While EFCA has currently stalled in the Congress, there has been no shortage of action by President Obama’s administration to transform the landscape of American labor law: a pro-labor National Labor Relations Board, numerous Executive Orders, administrative agency rule-making, litigation, legislative proposals, etc.

At this point, we believe our commentary on EFCA is placed in proper context by inclusion in the LRT blog with its coverage of a broader range of labor relations issues. Accordingly, within the coming weeks, we will be migrating EFCA Report content and subscribers over to the Labor Relations Today blog. There will be a dedicated EFCA tag where those who wish to continue to follow a more narrow set of issues may focus their reading. 

We thank all our readers for their support of EFCA Report, and hope that they will find Labor Relations Today to be an equally -- or more -- valuable resource.

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