White Paper

NLRB Allows Unions to Combine Temporary Employees with Permanent Employees for Organizing Efforts

 
“On July 11, 2016, the National Labor Relations Board (‘NLRB’ or the ‘Board’) used its expanded joint employer doctrine to incorporate temporary and permanent employees into a single bargaining unit when the employee groups share a sufficient community of interests. Formerly, unions had to obtain the consent of both employers to combine temporary and permanent employees into one unit. In Miller & Anderson, Inc. (364 NLRB 39), however, the Board returned to a ‘community of interests’ factor test that it says is more aligned with its mandate ‘to assure to employees the fullest freedom in exercising the rights guaranteed’ by the National Labor Relations Act.

Miller & Anderson, Inc. overturns a 2004 Board decision, Oakwood Care Center (343 NLRB 659), which classified temporary and permanent employee bargaining units as multi-employer units that require the consent of both employers for purposes of establishing a single bargaining unit. The Oakwood Care Center Board reasoned that the permanent and temporary employers were entirely independent businesses with nothing in common except that they operate in the same industry. However, the Board in Miller & Anderson, Inc., determined that the recently expanded joint employer doctrine more appropriately characterized the relationship.”

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Faculty

Robert J. Simandl

Robert J. Simandl

von Briesen & Roper, s.c.