In 1935, Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in order to regulate labor relations and negotiations, including collective bargaining, between unionized employees and their employers. Collective bargaining is further regulated by state statutes, administrative regulations and judicial decisions. When federal law and state laws address the same issues, federal law controls.<\/p>\n
Union Formation Procedures and Requirements<\/p>\n
Section 7 of the NLRA states that \u201cemployees have the right to self-organization\u2026\u201d Employees may form labor organizations and \u201cbargain collectively through a representative of their own choosing.\u201d However, the NLRA excludes numerous types of employment from coverage by restricting the definition of an employee. Among other limitations, where an individual is employed as a supervisor, they may not expect to enjoy coverage of the NLRA. According to the NLRA, the term \u201csupervisor\u201d is defined as:<\/p>\n
\u201c[A]ny individual having authority, in the interest of the employer, to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if in connection with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment.\u201d 29 U.S.C. \u00a7152(11).<\/p>\n
The interpretation of \u201cindependent judgment\u201d was recently addressed by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Supervisory Status and Independent Judgment<\/p>\n
In 2001, in NLRB v. Kentucky River Community Care, the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed, among other questions, \u201cwhether judgment is not \u2018independent judgment\u2019 to the extent that it is informed by professional or technical training or experience.\u201d In 1997, a Kentucky labor union (union) petitioned the NLRB to represent a group of health care providers at a mental care facility called the Caney Creek Development Complex (employer). The employer objected to the inclusion of six registered nurses in the bargaining unit. The employer argued that these individuals were supervisors and, thus, did not qualify to be members under the NLRA. The NLRB\u2019s Regional Director (the Board), disagreed and allowed their inclusion.<\/p>\n
Subsequent to several administrative actions, the employer appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which reversed the Board\u2019s decision, rejecting the Board\u2019s interpretation of \u201cindependent judgment.\u201d The court explained that: \u201cthe Board had erred by classifying \u2018the practice of a nurse supervising a nurse\u2019s aide in administering patient care\u2019 as \u2018routine\u2019 [simply] because the nurses have the ability to direct patient care by virtue of their training and expertise, not because of their connection with \u2018management.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court\u2019s decision. In doing so, it reviewed the NLRA\u2019s definition of \u201csupervisor,\u201d stating:<\/p>\n
\u201cEmployees are statutory supervisors if (1) they hold the authority to engage in any 1 of the 12 listed supervisory functions [see definition of “supervisor” above.] (2) their \u2018exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment,\u2019 and (3) their authority is held \u2018in the interest of the employer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
At issue was the Board\u2019s interpretation of \u201cindependent judgment,\u201d the second element in this three-part test. Specifically, the Board asserted that \u201cemployees do not use \u2018independent judgment\u2019 when they exercise \u2018ordinary professional or technical judgment in directing less-skilled employees to deliver services in accordance with employer-specified standards.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In its analysis, the Court agreed with part of the Board\u2019s interpretation. Specifically, it stated that the phrase \u201cindependent judgment\u201d is ambiguous. Many supervisory functions are nominally supervisory and do not require the judgment or discretion generally necessary to categorize such responsibilities as supervisory per se. For this reason, \u201c[i]t falls clearly within the Board\u2019s discretion to determine, within reason, what scope of discretion qualifies\u201d as satisfying the \u201cindependent judgment\u201d threshold.<\/p>\n
However, the Court took issue with the Board\u2019s decision to essentially alter the definition of \u201csupervisor\u201d by limiting the scope of independent judgment. The Board asserted that where an employee is given a sufficient degree of discretion to exercise judgment, the employee\u2019s judgment should be recharacterized as not being independent if it involves \u201cordinary professional or technical judgment in directing less skilled employees to deliver services.\u201d The Court rejected this exception, indicating that it was \u201cdirectly contrary to the text of the statute.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1935, Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in order to regulate labor relations and negotiations, including collective bargaining, between unionized employees and their employers. Collective bargaining is further regulated by state statutes, administrative regulations and judicial decisions. When federal law and state laws address the same issues, federal law controls. Union Formation … Continue reading “Securing Union Voting Rights under the National Labor Relations Act”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,11,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-jersey-lawyer","category-new-york-city-lawyer","category-philadelphia-lawyer","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}