NLRB expands supervisor decision to 54 cases

Unions’ worst fears about a recent legal decision may be coming true.

When the National Labor Relations Board announced Oct. 3 that hospital charge nurses are supervisors and therefore can’t belong to a union, labor said the decision would soon apply to other kinds of workers.

Two weeks after that decision, the NLRB told its regional directors to re-examine 54 legal cases in light of the newly established definition of supervisor. While 35 of the cases involved hospitals and nursing homes, 19 did not.

The cases involve carpenters, electricians, grocery workers and TV reporters.

In each case, the Board said the union and the company must get a new ruling on who is a supervisor and who isn’t.

One case stemmed from a June 2005 organizing campaign in Portland. Workers at CBS affiliate KOIN-TV wanted to join Local 51 of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-Communications Workers of America. For legal reasons, the workers were split into two groups. Station management argued that some of the workers seeking to unionize in the second group — nine news producers and three assignment desk editors — were supervisors. The NLRB’s regional office disagreed, and scheduled elections for both groups. Management appealed, so the NLRB conducted the elections, but impounded the ballots of the second group until the legal challenge is resolved. The national Board agreed to look at the case, but now wants the regional office to a second look based on the national Board’s ruling on the charge nurse case.

That’s not going to happen. Cathy Callahan, outgoing director of the NLRB’s Portland office, said she’s asking both sides if they still want the NLRB to decide the matter.

But events in the meantime have made the matter moot.

NABET-CWA won the election for the first group. Emmis Communications, the station owner that fought the unionizing campaign, sold KOIN-TV to Montecito Broadcast Group in January 2006, and Montecito agreed to voluntarily recognize the second group in exchange for NABET-CWA dropping the news producers. In July the two sides signed a first-ever three-year contract covering both groups.

“This whole story illustrates how one-sided and slanted this NLRB process is,” said Local 51 President Kevin Wilson. And it’s getting worse with the NLRB’s recent decision, which will impact every industry, Wilson said.

Other cases the Board sent back down to its regional offices for new hearings on who is a supervisor include disputes involving a barge operator in Longview, Wash., and a children’s museum in Seattle.