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Unions Have Upper Hand
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
management report for nonunion organizations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1530-8286
pISSN - 0745-4880
DOI - 10.1002/mare.30676
Subject(s) - unit (ring theory) , collective bargaining , non union , political science , odds , business , specialty , political economy , public relations , law and economics , law , economics , psychology , medicine , family medicine , mathematics education , surgery , logistic regression
As these cases indicate, unions have an upper hand in organizing, as they must prove only that a proposed unit is appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining. They need not prove that it is the most appropriate unit. The latitude provided for unions to carve out an organizing unit is significant, as it permits a union to effectively gerrymander when identifying the group of employees to represent. Nowhere was this fact more evident than in the highly controversial decision in Specialty Healthcare , 357 NLRB 934 (2011), that established the ability of unions to organize “microunits.” Microunits permitted unions even wider latitude to include in a proposed unit only those employees who showed strong union support. While the microunits rule was overturned several years later in PCC Structurals, Inc ., 365 NLRB No. 160 (2017), the fact of union gerrymandering remains. The concept of “community of interest” remains a way for a union to increase their odds of success at an election by seeking a unit that concentrates its support among the workers.