One of the hallmark initiatives of NLRB General Counsel
Richard F. Griffin Jr. has been the pursuit of more aggressive remedies in
response to what the General Counsel considers to be egregious unfair labor
practices (“ULP’) activity. While his
predecessors and prior Board members spoke of “special remedies” that they
would seek to impose in what they deemed extraordinary cases, General Counsel
Griffin and today’s National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) are much
more frequently arguing for and directing remedies that go beyond those that
the NLRB routinely imposed over the first 75 years following passage of the
National Labor Relations Act (the “Act” or the “NLRA”).
The General Counsel Wants Guitar Center Stores to Pay the
Union’s Bargaining Expenses
On July 24, 2015, Peter Sung Or, Regional Director Region
13 issued a Consolidated Complaint (pdf) against Guitar Center Stores, Inc., a
nationwide retail chain, accusing the company of bargaining in bad faith in its
negotiations with the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union (“Union”) for
contracts at the Chicago, New York and Las Vegas locations where the Union
represents sales employees. The
Complaint consolidates seven ULP charges involving negotiations at those
locations for collective bargaining agreements.
In addition to seeking the traditional remedy of an order directing the
employer to bargain in good faith, the Complaint also calls for a Board order
that would require the company “to reimburse the Union for its costs and
expenses incurred in collective bargaining for all negotiations from July 2013
forward, including for example, reasonable salaries, travel expenses, and per
diems” incurred by the Union. The
Complaint does not call for a date when the obligation to pay the Union’s
bargaining expenses would conclude, but
apparently the General Counsel wants the employer to pay these costs
until negotiations are completed and contracts are reached at each of these
locations.
This Case Reflects the General Counsel’s Decision to
Pursue “Enhanced Remedies” Much More Routinely
This case reflects decisions by the NLRB and its General
Counsel to take a much more aggressive approach in seeking what are arguably
punitive remedies against employers who are alleged to have violated the Act and to more aggressively seek injunctive
relief in the federal courts against what the General Counsel and Board believe
to be serious ULP activity . Section 10
of the Act gives the Board broad authority to remedy ULPs in order to
effectuate the purposes of the Act and to encourage collective bargaining. However, the Supreme Court has long
interpreted this authority as being entirely remedial– the Board has no
authority to issue punitive remedies such as fines or damages other than back
pay. Traditionally, the Board has
ordered an employer who violated the Act to: (i) cease and desist the conduct
found to be unlawful; (ii) cease and desist from violating the Act in any like
or related manner; (iii) take appropriate affirmative action, e.g., rehire,
bargain in good faith; expunge records, make employees whole, and (iv) post a
notice to employees for 60 days. In
truly egregious and rare cases, the Board has ordered an employer to bargain
with a union without an election where an employer commits such serious unfair labor
practices that a fair election cannot be held and where the union can show that
a majority of employees supported the union before the unfair labor practices–
so-called Gissel Bargaining Order (pdf). The Board also has authority to seek
Section 10(j) injunctive relief in appropriate cases. Here too, the General Counsel is continuing
to exercise his discretion to recommend (pdf) and pursue such relief far more
than in the past.
Starting in 2006, the General Counsel begun a series of initiatives involving bargaining
for initial contracts and undocumented
aliens, in which the General Counsel has sought to expand the scope of the
Board’s traditional remedies in cases of “extraordinary and flagrant
violations.” See “NLRB Reiterates Its
Position That Undocumented Workers Are Entitled To ‘Conditional Reinstatement’
in Unfair Labor Practice Cases. These new remedies include: (i) extension of
the certification year for bargaining with a newly certified union, (ii)
gaining access to the employer’s property, (iii) notice reading by Board agents
or Company officials, (iv) imposing a
schedule for bargaining; (v) requiring reports of bargaining status, and (vi)
reimbursement of bargaining or litigation costs.
As a result of these initiatives, labor unions, as well
as the General Counsel are starting to request that the Board award bargaining
expenses as part of the remedy in cases where the Board finds that an employer
has bargained in bad faith. NLRB General Counsel Griffin recently commented on
this trend at the Annual Midwinter meeting of the ABA Labor and Employment
Section when he stated that “[t]his is a continuation of previous initiatives
by the Office of the General Counsel (citations omitted). The relief may be requested by the Charging
Party or sua sponte by the Regional Director, when the Regional Director
believes such relief may be appropriate.” See General Counsel Memorandum
GC-15-05, at 25 (pdf).
It is not yet clear how the federal courts will view the
Board’s increased awarding of enhanced remedies since at this point there have
been very few cases in which such Board orders have been subject to judicial
review. While the Supreme Court has long
and unequivocally held that the Board cannot impose punitive remedies, recent
court of appeals cases appear to cast doubt on where the line is drawn. On May 8, 2015 the D.C. Court of Appeals in a
case entitled FallBrook Hospital Corporation v NLRB upheld the Board’s authority to award
bargaining costs in a case in which the Board had found an employer to have
engaged in what it referred to as an
egregious case of bad faith bargaining.
Citing the Board’s discretion in fashioning remedies for violations of
the Act, and the great degree of deference that the Courts are to afford the
Board’s interpretation of the Act, the
Court noted that the Hospital had not only committed a large number of ULPs but
also had acted in an “obstinate and
pugnacious manner” in its negotiations with its employees’ union representative
and had bargained with a “closed mind” and, in the course of the parties’
negotiations had “put up a series of roadblocks designed to thwart and delay
bargaining.” For these reasons the Court deferred to the Board and enforced its
order directing the Hospital to reimburse the union for its expenses and costs
over the course of the negotiations.
What’s Next?
Given, all of this, it is no surprise that unions are
increasingly asking for the Board to pursue these and other types of enhanced
remedies when they file ULP charges and over the course of Board proceedings.
Whether and where the Board will draw a bright line differentiating between
what it will consider to be an egregious violation which it believes justifies
and requires enhanced remedies and more routine hard bargaining cases, in which
it will hold traditional remedies are adequate is yet unknown. Also unknown is whether the Board is prepared
to issue orders calling for such enhanced remedies when it is a union, not an
employer, that has bargained in bad faith, is also unknown at this stage.
Source: Management
Memo
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