Tentative Agreement Reached to Suspend Dockworkers’ Strike

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
10/04/2024
Early Tuesday morning, thousands of U.S. dockworkers walked off the job, congesting ports on the East and Gulf coasts. The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), the union representing 50,000 U.S. dockworkers at 36 ports from Maine to Texas, was seeking a 77% increase in wages (over six years) and job protection with a ban on some types of automated equipment. With only weeks to go before the 2024 presidential election and in the middle...
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Woodford Reserve Distillery Ordered to Bargain with Union Despite Winning a Representation Election

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
04/15/2024
In August 2022, the Teamsters Union notified Woodford Reserve Distillery that its employees were organizing. Managers then held meetings with employees to speak about the organizing campaign. By the first week of October 2022, the employer believed that 50-60 percent of the employees had signed union authorization cards, primarily motivated by a desire for increased wages. By October 11, the Company decided to announce a $4 per hour across-the-board...
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Is The Cemex Doctrine Is Here to Stay?

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
11/20/2023
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has taken two affirmative steps to cement the Cemex doctrine into current labor law.  First, the NLRB Office of General Counsel, headed by Jennifer A. Abruzzo, issued Memorandum GC 24-01, Guidance in Response to Inquiries about the Board’s Decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific LLC.  Abruzzo stated in the guidance that “the Cemex Board took issue with the prior focus on the potential impact...
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NLRB Releases Filing Statistics for FY 2023

Vincent Jackson
Vincent Jackson
10/19/2023
The National Labor Relations Board released case processing data for FY 2023.  The data shows that between October 1, 2022 and September 20, 2023, 22,448 cases were filed--a 10% increase over the previous fiscal year.  2023 also saw the highest number of cases filed since 2016. The increase in filings was spread across both unfair labor practice (ULP) charges and union representation-related activity.  Both categories of cases have seen...
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And So The Pendulum Swings: NLRB Revives Joy Silk From The Ashes

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
08/29/2023
The NLRB’s democratic majority struck a big win for unions by reviving the precedent set in the 1949 NLRB decision, In re Joy Silk Mills, Inc., 85 N.L.R.B. 1263 (1949).   Using Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC as their torpedo, the NLRB has inflicted a blow to employers facing unionization efforts. The employees at issue were approximately 366 ready-mix cement truck drivers and driver trainers.  The drivers and trainers showed support...
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NLRB Revises Workplace Rules Standards

As has been anticipated for some time, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), in Stericycle, Inc. (Aug. 2, 2023), adopted a new standard for determining whether workplace rules are lawful under the National Labor Relations Act.  The new standard is similar to the analysis used prior to the Board’s 2017 decision in Boeing Co. Under the Stericycle framework, the lawfulness of workplace rules under the NLRA turns on whether workers would view...
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Union Misconduct During A Strike May Result In State Court Liability

Peter Saucier
Peter Saucier
06/01/2023
Decades ago, the Supreme Court interpreted the National Labor Relations Act to afford unions and strikers special immunity from state court liability for damages resulting from a strike. Named after a 1959 Supreme Court decision, that so-called Garmon exemption doctrine, in the words of the Supreme Court, “tells us not just what law applies (federal law, not state law) but who applies it (the National Labor Relations Board, not the state courts or...
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Frozen Concrete – How Much Does Labor Law Protect “Sabotage”?

Peter Saucier
Peter Saucier
01/24/2023
Industrial concrete, once prepared, must be poured and set promptly. Glacier Concrete, a mid-sized company in Washington state, sends mixer trucks filled with concrete to jobsites every day.  In 2017, some 13 mixer trucks filled with concrete were on the road when the Teamsters Union called a strike among the drivers of Glacier Concrete. Many of the mixer truck drivers returned their trucks to the company yard, filled with wet concrete, and walked...
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Medieval Times Files Trademark Lawsuit Against Newly-Formed Union

Vincent Jackson
Vincent Jackson
10/20/2022
In a fascinating intersection of labor relations and trademark law, Medieval Times has sued a newly-formed union for improperly adopting and using its MEDIEVAL TIMES® trademark.   The case, filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey on October 13, 2022, seeks an injunction against the Union—Medieval Times Performers United—for unauthorized misappropriation of the MEDIEVAL TIMES mark.  Medieval Times (the...
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More (Possible) Labor Pains

Darrell VanDeusen
Darrell VanDeusen
04/13/2022
Earlier this week I wrote about some developments in labor law.  I thought my second blog would be about something completely different.  But wait, there’s more. On Wednesday, April 12, the NLRB’s General Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, through her deputy GC, filed a brief to the Board that claims a former NLRB associate general counsel – in 1969 – “misrepresented controlling board law” in an argument before the U.S. Supreme Court,...
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