Best Practices for Managing Union Employees

Agenda

Foundations: The NLRB Landscape and the Jurisdictional Map

• The Current State of the National Labor Relations Board - the Quorum Loss of 2025, the December 2025 Restoration With Two New Republican Members and General Counsel Crystal Carey, Today's 2-1 Composition, and the Pending Supreme Court Decision on Agency Independence Expected by July 2026
• Why Key Biden-ERA Precedents Remain Binding Today, Which Are Most Likely to Change Once the Board Reaches a Third Republican Member, and How to Plan for the Two-Horizon Legal Landscape
• The Legal Floor and the Contract on Top of It: How Title VII, ADA, FMLA, and State and Local Law Continue to Apply in a Union Workplace; Why Most First-Round Disputes Funnel Into Arbitration or Ulp Charges Rather Than Court; and What That Means for Litigation Strategy and Risk Assessment

The Doctrines Every Manager Must Know Cold

• Protected Concerted Activity, Weingarten Rights in Investigatory Interviews, and the Obey Now, Grieve Later Principle That Makes a Unionized Workplace Functional
• The Line Between Disciplining and Directing Work, the Most Common Direct-Dealing Traps That Invite Ulp Charges, and Why Past Practice Has Become a Weaker Defense for Employers Under the Board's 2024 Endurance Environmental Decision
• Supervisory Status Under Section 2(11) and the Doctrine of Agency: Who Counts as a Statutory Supervisor, Why Job Title Doesn't Matter, and How the Conduct of Leads and Senior Employees Can Be Imputed to the Employer Under Apparent Authority

Contract Administration, Discipline, and Investigations

• Reading and Actually Using the CBA: Where Management Discretion Lives, Where It Has Been Bargained Away - Hiring, Performance Management, Progressive Discipline, Leave - and the Joint-Process and Labor-Management Committee Clauses That Managers Routinely Overlook
• The Just Cause Framework and the Daugherty Seven Tests: How Arbitrators Actually Evaluate Discipline, What Notice and Equal-Treatment Look Like in Practice, and the Documentation Habits That Survive Arbitration
• Workplace Investigations in a Union Setting: Confidentiality Directives in the Post-Apogee Retail Landscape, Structuring Investigatory Interviews, and Coordinating With Union Stewards Without Compromising the Integrity of the Investigation

Day-To-Day Compliance: Work Rules, Bargaining, and Economic Weapons

• Work Rules and Handbooks Under the Stericycle Framework: The Rule Categories Most Likely to Trip the Wire - No-Solicitation, Civility, Confidentiality, Recording, and Social Media Policies - and What to Audit First
• The Duty to Bargain Beyond the Negotiating Table: Mandatory, Permissive, and Illegal Subjects; Mid-Term Changes to Terms and Conditions of Employment; and the Union's Right to Information Relevant to Representation
• Strikes, Lockouts, and Economic Weapons: The Distinction Between Economic and Unfair Labor Practice Strikes, Permanent Versus Temporary Replacement Rules, Lockouts, and Unprotected Concerted Activity Such as Slowdowns and Intermittent Strikes

Special Situations and the Manager's Playbook

• Successor Employer Obligations Under the Burns and Fall River Doctrines, Joint-Employer Status With Staffing and Contingent Workforces, and the Rules Governing Decertification and Rm Petitions
• Relationship, Tone, and Pre-Bargaining Preparation: Respecting the Union as an Institution, Walking Away Before Escalating Discipline, and Systematically Gathering Front-Line and Middle-Manager Feedback in the Months Leading up to Negotiations - the Same Playbook the Union Is Already Running
• Key Takeaways, Highest-Leverage Practices to Apply Monday Morning, and Questions From the Audience

Credits

Faculty