Skip to main content

First Union Election At a Target Store Is Upheld By The NLRB


Readers might remember that Target has traditionally been very tough in fighting to keep unions out of its workplace.  (An Inside Look at How Target Deals With Union Organizing).  There had previously been two union elections at Target stores:  One in 2011 and the other in 1990.  Note, the union lost both of those elections and Target has continued to remain union free.  However, it appears that anti-union rhetoric has taken a slight hit as of late.

Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") denied a petition by Target in which the retail giant petitioned to have a union election invalidated that occurred at one of its stores in Brooklyn.  At that location, pharmacy workers voted 7 - 2 to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.  

However, Target said the election should never have occurred because Target is selling its entire pharmacy operation to the drugstore chain CVS.  Target based its petition on the fact that the NLRB has traditionally dismissed union election petitions in the face of "imminent and certain change" at the employer (such as change that would lead to employee termination).  According to Target, when the sale with CVS closes this coming December or January, the pharmacy workers would be terminated.  Therefore, there was no purpose in holding the union election.

With this denial of Target's petition, Target still has options.  For instance, the company could take the case to federal court and ask that the NLRB's ruling be overturned.  However, as of this moment, it looks like a union could be in place at the first Target location (for however long those pharmacy workers are still employed there, that is...).



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more