Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner sought substantial wage concessions on the basis of competitive pressures it claimed to be facing. Seeking to verify this contention, the union requested information about petitioner's prices and customers. Petitioner denied the union's request and then locked out the bargaining unit employees. Relying on a line of decisions endorsing a broad discovery standard, the Board found that the union's information request was relevant to duties as the employees' bargaining representative and that petitioner's information withholding and lockout were both unlawful. The court agreed with the Board's application of its discovery line of cases to an employer's competitive disadvantage claim and agreed that the union was entitled to the requested information to verify petitioner's assertions. The court disposed of petitioner's remaining arguments and granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement of its order. View "KLB Industries, Inc. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Erie petitioned for review of the Board's decision finding that Erie violated section 8(a)(5) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(1), (5). Erie challenged the Board's finding of unlawful refusal to bargain, arguing that the parties were at a bargaining impasse. Alternatively, Erie argued that even if the court upheld the Board's finding of an unfair labor practice, the bargaining remedy imposed exceeded the Board's authority. Because the court concluded that substantial evidence did not support the Board's decision, the court granted the petition for review and vacated the Board's decision and order. The court need not decide the challenge to the Board's remedy. View "Erie Brush & Manufacturing Corp. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Good-Nite withdrew recognition on Unite Here! Local 2 based on anti-union petitions that the Board found were impermissibly tainted by Good-Nite's unlawful assistance to the decertification effort in violation of sections 8(a)(5) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(1), (5). Good-Nite petitioned for review on the principal ground that the Board applied the wrong line of its precedent in Hearst Corp., and expanded the conduct covered by it, unreasonably departing from its settled causality precedent in Master Slack Corp. The court held that the Board's Hearst presumption was reasonable and consistent with the Act, and that the Board's factual findings were supported by substantial evidence in the record. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review and granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement. View "SFO Good-Nite Inn, LLC v. NLRB" on Justia Law

The Hospital challenged the Board's determination that a "wall to wall" bargaining unit of the Hospital's professional and non-professional employees was appropriate. The court rejected the Hospital's claim that the Health Care Rule violated Section 9(c)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 159(c)(5), because it endorsed the extent of a union's organization as the controlling factor in unit determination. The court also rejected the Hospital's claim that the Board violated the Rule because the Union was required to show and the Board was required to find extraordinary circumstances to join together a number of the Rule's designated units. The court further rejected the Hospital's procedural objections to the Board's underlying proceedings. Accordingly, the petitions for review were denied and the Board's cross-applications for enforcement were granted. View "San Miguel Hospital Corp. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

After the State Department terminated the employment of Appellant on his sixty-fifth birthday, Appellant brought suit alleging that his forced retirement violated the federal employment provisions of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The district court dismissed Appellant's complaint on the ground that the statute under which Appellant was hired, section 2(c) of the Basic Authorities Act, permitted the Department to exempt Appellant from the protections of the ADEA. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding nothing in the Basic Authorities Act that abrogates the ADEA's broad proscription against personnel actions that discriminate on the basis of age. View "Miller v. Clinton" on Justia Law

Sutter East Bay Hospitals sought review of a National Labor Relations Board (Board) order concluding that Sutter East Bay violated the National Labor Relations Act. The Board cross-applied for enforcement of that order. Sutter East Bay conceded that it engaged in illegal surveillance of its employees' union activities, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Board's application for enforcement of that determination. The Court also granted the Board's application for enforcement of the finding that Sutter East Bay unlawfully changed its solicitation policy to stifle support for a new labor union. The Court agreed with Sutter East Bay, however, that the ALJ failed to properly apply the appropriate legal standard in determining that the employer unlawfully disciplined its employee and granted Sutter East Bay's petition for review with regard to those disciplinary actions. Remanded to the Board for rehearing.

Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian-born American citizen, claimed that his employer, the FBI, (1) discriminated against him on the basis of his national origin after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, by not placing him in a substantive position dealing with counterterrorism and instead transferring him to a job for which he was dramatically overqualified; and (2) retaliated against him when he filed a complaint and spoke to his superiors about his predicament. The district court granted summary judgment against Youseef's discrimination claim but allowed his retaliation claim to be tried by a jury. The jury returned a verdict against Youssef, and the district court denied Youssef's motion for a new trial. The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed the district court's refusal to grant a new trial but reversed its judgment against Youssef's discrimination claim, holding that because the district court did not reach the fact-intensive issue of a possible discriminatory motive for the transfer, and the parties did not fully brief it to the Court, the case was remanded for further examination of the FBI's reason for the transfer.

Plaintiff was a black male who worked in the United State Department of Agriculture's (Department) Foreign Agricultural Service. Plaintiff's employment was terminated after it was discovered that Plaintiff submitted false receipts for reimbursement, failed to report his required financial interests, and failed to properly submit to the Department a credit issued by a hotel to his government-issued credit card, among other things. Plaintiff filed suit in district court, alleging various claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The district court granted the Department summary judgment on nine of Plaintiff's ten counts, including his race discrimination claim. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Plaintiff failed to produce sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that he was terminated because of racial discrimination.

Appellee, an employee of the FBI, alleged that FBI officials retaliated against him in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when, by reporting unfounded security concerns to the Bureau's Security Division, they prompted an investigation into his continued eligibility for a security clearance. In the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals' earlier opinion in this case, Rattigan v. Holder, the Court held that although the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit precedent shields the Security Division's security clearance-related decisions from judicial review, the Title VII claim could nonetheless go forward so long as it challenged only the reporting of Appellee to the Security Division and not the Division's decision to investigate. On rehearing, however, the Court vacated the district court judgment and narrowed the scope of Title VII liability in these circumstances, holding that Appellee's Title VII claim could proceed only if he could show that agency employees acted with a retaliatory or discriminatory motive in reporting or referring information that they knew to be false. Remanded for further proceedings.

In 2005, Chevron Mining, Inc. (CMI) amended its employee bonus plan in response to the decision of the United Mine Workers of America to call "memorial period" work stoppages. The National Labor Relations Board (Board) concluded that the amended was an unfair labor practice. CMI filed a petition for review in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Board filed a cross-application for enforcement. The Ninth Circuit denied CMI's petition for review and granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement, holding (1) the employees' participation in the 2004 memorial days was protected under the National Labor Relations Act (Act); and (2) the Board's finding that CMI's amendment to the bonus plan violated the Act was supported by substantial evidence.