Health Law Advisor

In recent years, unions representing employees in health care facilities have engaged in activities during contract negotiations to pressure employers into settling, while limiting the cost of engaging in strike activity in the form of lost wages to union employees. The two most common forms of such activity used by unions are informational picketing, and short, sometimes intermittent, strikes, usually lasting only a day or two.

Informational Picketing

Informational picketing is yet another issue on which the NLRB has recently overturned precedent, in this case favoring union ...

by: James S. Frank, Steven M. Swirsky, and D. Martin Stanberry

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday February 27^th, in NLRB v. Special Touch Home Care Servs. Inc., 11-3147 (2d.Cir., Feb. 27, 2013) (PDF) that the NLRB erred when finding that 48 home health aides were protected by the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”) when they participated in a strike after affirmatively telling their employer that they would be present for their shifts at their respective patients’ homes during the week of the strike.

While the NLRB had held that the workers actions were ...