NLRB Signals the Likely Return of the Micro-Unit

 In

The National Labor Relations Board is inviting briefs in a case where a union seeks to represent a small pocket of employees within an employer’s larger, functionally integrated operation. The Biden Board is expected to overturn the 2017 decision in PCC Structurals and return to the Obama-era standard under Specialty Healthcare requiring an employer to establish that additional employees it seeks to add to the union’s preferred petitioned-for unit have an “overwhelming community of interest” with the petitioned-for unit.

In practice, this elevated burden is virtually impossible to meet. Consequently, unions will organize smaller groups of employees who support the union with little concern that the employer may be able to add to the voting unit other employees who share something less than the overwhelming community of interest with the union’s preferred bargaining unit.