03/12/2024: Starbucks Decertification Attempts. More Guard Mayhem.

More on the bizarre situation of guards under the NLRA.

The NLRB released four documents today:

1. Starbucks, 03-RD-328126 (Unpublished Board Decision). A Starbucks employee submitted a petition seeking to decertify the union as the bargaining representative for the workers at his store. The regional director dismissed the petition because, separately, there are pending refusal-to-bargain charges against Starbucks that, if proven, would result in a bargaining order that would preclude a decertification petition. The Starbucks employee requested a review of this decision. The Board denied the request.

2. Starbucks Corporation, 12-RD-320278 (Unpublished Board Decision). This is the same thing as (1) but for a different store.

3. Alante Security Group Inc., 29-RC-335614 (Unpublished Board Decision). SEIU Local 32BJ currently represents a unit of guards at the employer. Despite this, the United Federation LEOS-PBA filed a petition to represent that same unit. The regional director ordered the election, but set it to take place between LEOS-PBA and the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFA). SEIU was excluded from the ballot because it is a mixed guard/non-guard union and, under University of Chicago (1984), mixed guard/non-guard unions are prohibited from being on the ballot for a union election involving guards. SEIU sought a review of this decision, arguing variously that University of Chicago should be overruled or that it should not be applied to this case where the mixed guard/non-guard union is the incumbent union. The Board granted this request for review.

4. National Labor Relations Board General Counsel and Government of the Dominican Republic to Partner on Workplace Rights (National News). As part of an initiative to strengthen the rights of immigrant workers, the NLRB has been partnering with Latin American embassies, including now the Dominican Republic.

I explained some about the situation of guards under the NLRA in yesterday’s update. Section 9(b)(3) forbids the NLRB from certifying a union as a representative for a unit of security guards if that union also represents non-guards. But this does not forbid employers from voluntarily recognizing a mixed guard/non-guard union as the representative for a unit of security guards. In Atlante Security Group, the employer did precisely that and voluntarily recognized SEIU as the representative for a unit of security guards.

Now that two guard-only unions have sought to represent that same unit, SEIU is in a bizarre situation where they are the incumbent union of these security guards but cannot be placed on the election ballot. At the same time, once an employer voluntarily recognizes a union, it cannot withdraw that recognition unless the union loses majority support, something that cannot be determined if SEIU is not placed on the ballot.

On the legal question at hand, I think SEIU is probably right that it ought to be placed on the ballot so that it has a chance of demonstrating that it has majority support. But more generally, this just reaffirms the point I made in the prior update that these special rules around guards are dumb and should be done away with.