Two Cases Show Both Reach And Limits Of NLRB’s Micro-Union Rules

Micro-Unions, supported by the NLRB’s Specialty Healthcare decision, may be here to stay, but with limits, with petitions more likely to be approved for companies that delineate the petitioning workers into discrete groups. One group of department store cosmetics workers had their unionization petition approved because their department was distinctly separate from other selling employees, were all supervised by the same sales manager, and had little contact with employees or customers of other departments. However, when another department store’s women’s shoe employees petitioned to form a micro-union, the board ruled against them, saying the store had no drawn administrative or operational boundaries around those workers.