Workforce Bulletin

In recent years, the Obama Board has adopted some extreme views on Section 7 rights, which has pushed its jurisdiction into uncharted territories and left non-unionized employers vulnerable to attack. Two of the most notable examples are (1) Murphy Oil U.S.A., Inc. and D.R. Horton, Inc., in which the Board invalidated arbitration agreements with class action waivers and effectively ignored a mountain of legal precedent to the contrary, including the Supreme Court’s repeated affirmations of such agreements and the Board’s own longstanding jurisprudence and (2) Banner ...

By Kara M. Maciel and Lindsay A. Smith

On March 12, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (“the Board”) concluded that a beef processing company committed an unfair labor practice in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) when it terminated three workers for striking in protest of their working conditions (“Greater Omaha Packing Co.”).  More significant, however, was the Board’s decision to reverse an Administrative Law Judge’s finding concerning the employer’s questioning of an employee.  Prior to the strike, one of the terminated ...