KEY LABOR LAW TERMS DEFINED
Access: Who is permitted to come onto the property, and what they may be doing while on the
property. Also includes access to coworkers
Advice memo: A memo released by the NLRB regarding new areas of regulation where no case
law exists.
Agency Shop: A form of union security agreement where the employer may hire non-union
workers, but they pay a free to cover collective bargaining costs.
Ally doctrine: When an employer is so closely allied with a firm subject to a labor stoppage that
it has lost its claim to neutrality.
Alter ego: An effort to avoid collective bargaining obligations through sham transactions. Board
considers whether the two entities are substantially identical in management, business purpose,
operation, equipment, customers, supervision, and ownership.
Animus (anti-union): Actions taken by an employer in retaliation to unionization efforts which
discourages participation in union activities.
Appropriate unit: Workers who share a community of interest and who may collectively
bargain together, which may be store-by-store, local, state, or even wider.
Arbitral common law: also called the common law of shops, the law under which arbitration
establishes a common law overall to the industry.
Blacklists: Employer lists of union supporters
Board, The: The National Labor Relations Board, composed of 5 members with stratified terms,
and one General Council. All presidential appointees.
Boulewarism: A take-it-or-leave-it offer in a negotiation with no further discussions or
concessions.
Boys Market injunctions: Certain allowance for injunctions against strikes which violate a
CBA. Circuits are divided on the availability of injunctions against sympathy strikes. It may only
be issued if the court find (1) a collective bargaining agreement, (2) with an arbitration clause,
which (3) requires arbitration of the instant dispute.
“Bread and butter” unions: The belief that unions should be concerned with improving
WHWC and not political reform. American Federation of labor.
C-cases: Cases in which the controversy related to whether Unfair Labor Practiced in violation
of Sec.8(2) have occurred.
Captive audience speech: A speech given by employers which discourage workers from joining
a union, they are held during work hours typically before an election.
Card check: In which employees organize into a labor union by singing authorization cards
stating they wish to be represented by the union. An alternative to the election process.
Charge (of a ULP): An employer who is accused of engaging in activities such as interfering
with employees right to engage in concerted activities, discriminating against employees with
union ties, refusing to bargain, interfering with union formation.
Certification: The recognition by the NLRB or state agency that a union is a qualified
bargaining unit.
Closed Shop: Restricting hiring practices to only union members.
Collective bargaining: An organized group of employees who negotiate WHWC, and other
conditions that are permissible.
Collierize
Common situs: The act of picketing an entire construction site by a trade union which has a
grievance with only a single subcontractor.
Community of interest: Criteria used by the NLRB to determine appropriate bargaining units.
Including WHWC (1) Similarity in Skills, interests, duties and working conditions; (2)
Functional integration of the plant, including interchange and contact among the employees, (3)
The employer’s organizational and supervisory structure; (4) the bargaining history; and (50 the
extent of union organization among the employees.
Company unions - Employer sponsored and dominated unions
Complaint: An accusation that an employer is engaged in an unfair labor practice.
Concerted Activity: An employee action that concerns wages hour or working conditions in
consert with other employees.
Contract bar: One a contract is executed, no representation elections are permitted by the unit
covered by the agreement.
Cooling Off Period - E.g., RLA’s thirty day period of no strike, no change
Crossovers:
Decertification: The process by which a unit no longer recognized the union as their
representative.
Double breasted operations: Companies with one arm that operated under a CBA and one
which does not. The companies must remain separate or can be found to be an alter ego.
Duty to Bargain: The mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the
employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages hours and
working conditions, and other terms of employment.
Election: A process by which a majority of employees vote to certify a union as their
representative.
Election bar: Restricts new elections for one year after an election has occurred, whether or not
it was successful.
Exclusive bargaining representative: A certified labor organization which exclusively
represents employees in the appropriate unit.
Free Speech and Association: Labor law free speech is more curtailed than con law free speech.
Hot Cargo Agreements: An agreement where in an employer agrees to not force employees to
handle products or materials by another employer deemed unfair to organized labor.
Impasse: Er and EEs must bargain to an impasse, if this stage is reached the employer may them
impose terms and conditions proposed prior to impasse.
Indefensible conduct: Unprotected conduct by an employee where in the employee is shown to
be disloyal to the employer.
Ingress or Egress: Right to enter and exit property- concerns where employees may strike.
Interest arbitration: When issues are not resolved in contract negotiation, they may be
presented to an arbitrator for resolution.
Intermittent strikes: When employers repeatedly stop work for short durations.
Joint employers: when two or more employers oversee the work on one or more employees.
Labor organization: An organization of employees engaged in activities concerning WHWC.
Law of the Shop: Recognizing the impossibility of creating a CBA for all aspects of employer
employee relationships, arbitrators consider the industry when making decisions.
Leadman: The person appointed to be “in charge’ or a group of employees for purposes of
dealing with the employer
Leafleting: Distributing leaflets to people regarding issues common to labor, speech protected
by the first amendment.
Leased employees: an agreement where in a supplier company provides leases of workers to
client co,
Mandatory subjects: Wages hours and working conditions
Mass and Violent:
Memorandum of Understanding: A legal document describing a bilateral agreement between
parties, expressive a convergence of will towards a common line of action.
Multiemployer groups:
Mutual aid and protection: Efforts to improve working conditions through collective activity.
Neutrality agreements: The employer agrees not to oppose a union’s efforts to organize.
No strike clauses: A highly sought after guarantee in a CBA where in the union agrees not to
strike.
Open shops - Employers committed to non union operations
Past practice: A long standing, frequent practice which is accepted and known by union and
management.
Permissive subjects: Subjects of bargaining which are not directs related to WHWC.
Picketing: A form of protest where people gather outside of a location to garner support or draw
public attention.
Picket line misconduct:
Preemption:
Prehire agreements: Where a union and employer come to an agreement prior to hiring
workers.
Prevailing rates: The average wage paid to similarly employed workers in specific occupations.
Progressive discipline: A policy where in the severity of discipline increases each time the
infraction occurs.
Protected Activity: Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist
labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to
engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid
or protection.
R-cases (RC, RM): Cases in front of the NLRB which have to do with whether or on what
terms, a union acts as a bargaining agents for a unit.
Recognition:
Recognition bar: Doctrine barring the filing of election petitions for a period of time after the
employer has recognized the union based on majority status.
Regressive bargaining: A type of bargaining where one side rolls back offers, considered bad
faith.
Retaliation: Adverse action against an employee when they have participated in investigation or
prosecution of an unfair labor practice. Must be a protected activity, which led to an adverse
action, and connected to that protected activity.
Right to work (states): States which bar unions from negotiating contracts which would force
non-union employees into contributing to union representation.
Runaway shop: When an employer, attempting to evade union obligation, seeks to close the
unionized facility and transfer the work to another location.
Salts: A union org tactic by which a union pays an individual to apply for a job and then when
employment is obtained, to begin union organizing efforts.
Scab: A strikebreaker.
Section 7 rights:
Section 10 injunctions: When the nlrb seek temporary injunctions against employers and unions
in federal district courts to stop unfair labor practices while the case is being litigated before
administrative law judges and the Board.
Secondary activity:
Secondary boycotts: Actions taken against an employer who does business with another
organization with whom a dispute exists. This kind of activity has been made illegal.
Showing of interest:
Sit down strikes: Employees who take over a workplace by sitting down at their stations.
Slow down strikes: Employees reduce their productivity as a form of striking.
Strikebreaker: People who work in place of workers on strike.
Supervisors: People held to show independent judgement who have more responsibility than
other employees. They may not join in a traditional union, they may organize but it is not
protected when they do.
Superseniority: Language in a CBA which affords union officials the opportunity to keep their
jobs, prevening bumping, termination, or layoff.
Surface bargaining: a strategy of negotiation in which one party merely goes through the
motions with no intent of reaching an agreement “bad faith”
Surveillance:
Sympathy strikes: Where the strikers have no direct grievance against their own employer but
attempt to support or aid usually another group of workers on strike
Unfair labor practices:
Union security: an agreement where employer agrees on the extent to which the union may
compel employees to join the union, what fees, etc.
Union shop: An employer who may hire non union workers so long as they join the union
within a specified time.
Union: An association of people with a community of interests.
Unit clarification: a petition to seek clarification of the placement of employees withing an
existing bargaining unit.
Vested benefits: A financial package granted to employees who have met the requirements.
“Wobblies”: The nickname of the Industrial Workers of the World, a Chicago labor org who
apposed the AFL’s acceptance of capitalism.
Work Rules: Rules which govern conduct in the workplace
Yellow Dog Contracts - Individual Ks not to affiliate with or support a Union as a
condition of employment
Zipper clauses