Earlier this year, the Acting General Counsel met with the Practice and Procedure Committee of the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section. He answered questions the Committee collected from practitioners around the country. He did this last year as well.
Consistent with his practice, the AGC released last week a memorandum (pdf) that summarized the questions that were posed and his answers to those questions. The memorandum covers a broad range of topics, far too numerous to cover effectively on this blog. Labor professionals with a particular interest in practice before the NLRB and its regional offices will want to review the memorandum in detail.
However, there are a few highlights to the memorandum this year that are interesting to note. These are listed below, along with a page number reference to the memorandum where additional information can be found:
- Data on the number of cases in which the NLRB has sought a 10(j) injunction in a first contract bargaining situation, and the NLRB’s success rate with those actions (pp. 1-2).
- Information regarding the number of charges involving the termination of employees during union organizing campaigns, and the number of those cases in which the regional offices found probable cause to believe that the charge had any merit (pp.4-5).
- An analysis of regional actions with respect to the inclusion of default language in settlement agreements, including brief discussion of situations in which such language is not included or is included in a limited fashion (pp. 11-12).
- A summary of cases decided under Specialty Healthcare, the NLRB’s 2011 decision that altered how certain bargaining unit determinations are made (pp. 16-21).
- A brief discussion of the regional office’s experience handling voluntary recognition cases arising after the NLRB’s Lamons Gasket decision (p. 22).
- A brief discussion of the "reasonable period of bargaining" required in successor bar cases following the NLRB’s UGL-UNICCO decision (p. 23).