06/10/2026: Board Pierces Corporate Veil in Default $3.6 Million Judgment
Successorship, retaliation, and coercive polling, among other things.
Ampersand Publishing, LLC D/B/a Santa Barbara News-Press, 374 NLRB No. 129, 31-CA-028589 (Published Board Decision)
The Board issued a default judgment against the former owners of the Santa Barbara News-Press and associated entities, ordering them to pay approximately $3.6 million in back pay, expenses, and bargaining costs stemming from unfair labor practices that were litigated years ago.
The underlying violations were resolved in a 2021 supplemental order — later enforced in full by the Ninth Circuit — that required the newspaper’s parent company, Ampersand Publishing, to make employees and the Graphic Communications Conference/Teamsters whole for lost wages, improperly assigned unit work, and bargaining costs. After Ampersand filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in July 2023, questions arose about who remained responsible for satisfying those obligations.
The Regional Director’s March 2025 compliance specification added two real estate holding companies — 715 Anacapa, LLC and 725 Kellogg, LLC — and newspaper owner Wendy McCaw personally as respondents. The specification alleged that all three entities operated as a single employer with Ampersand, sharing ownership, management, premises, and equipment. As for McCaw individually, the specification alleged grounds for piercing the corporate veil: she had transferred more than $1.3 million from Ampersand to entities she controlled or directly to herself, commingled funds, and failed to maintain arm’s-length dealings — conduct that allegedly rendered Ampersand insolvent and constituted a fraud on its creditors.
None of the respondents filed an answer, prompting the Board to enter default judgment and deem all allegations admitted. The Board found the three LLCs jointly and severally liable as a single employer and held McCaw personally liable, ordering all respondents to pay the combined $3,602,579 total, plus compounded daily interest.
Member Prouty noted his view — consistent with his earlier dissent in California Truck Driving Academy — that the motion should have been denied without prejudice pending confirmation of proper service, but he was in the minority on that point.
Significant Cases Cited
White Oak Coal Co., Inc., 318 NLRB 732 (1995): Board precedent supporting corporate veil-piercing to hold an individual owner personally liable for a respondent’s NLRA remedial obligations.
New Horizons, 283 NLRB 1173 (1987): Established the interest rate formula applied to back pay awards in Board compliance proceedings.
Kentucky River Medical Center, 356 NLRB 6 (2010): Established the Board’s practice of compounding interest daily on back pay and make-whole awards.
Cardinal Services, Inc., 295 NLRB 933 (1989): Holds that a respondent’s bankruptcy filing does not deprive the Board of jurisdiction to process and conclude an unfair labor practice case.
California Truck Driving Academy, LLC, 373 NLRB No. 95 (2024): Recent precedent addressing service sufficiency in default judgment proceedings, cited as authority for the majority’s finding that service was adequate here.
JSK Parsippany, LLC, 374 NLRB No. 124, 22-CA-305280 (Published Board Decision)
The Board found that two successive owners of a Parsippany, New Jersey hotel systematically tried to eliminate the union representing their housekeeping and maintenance staff. The first owner, JSK, defaulted and was found liable without a hearing. The second, Fairfield, litigated and lost on nearly every issue.
The central story is straightforward: when Fairfield took over the hotel in August 2023, it hired nine of the fifteen bargaining unit employees — keeping all of JSK’s anti-union hires while turning away the six most senior, openly pro-union workers. The Board found this was deliberate discrimination under the Wright Line framework, and that Fairfield’s claim it had always intended to contract out the housekeeping work rang hollow given that it didn’t actually do so until four months later. A private indemnification agreement Fairfield had signed with JSK — apparently an attempt to shift liability — provided no protection, as the Board reaffirmed that private contracts cannot limit its authority to remedy NLRA violations.
Because Fairfield took over operations without setting its own employment terms before the union made a bargaining demand, it was required under NLRB v. Burns and Fall River Dyeing to maintain the terms of JSK’s expired contract as the status quo. It failed to do so across the board — refusing to recognize the union, stopping dues checkoff, blocking union representatives from entering the facility, terminating the six pro-union employees in December 2023, and refusing to provide basic information the union needed to represent its members.
An additional violation arose when testimony revealed that Fairfield’s attorney had interviewed employees about their union views before the hearing without telling them their participation was voluntary or that they wouldn’t face retaliation — the assurances required under Johnnie’s Poultry.
The Board’s most notable independent action came in the remedy footnotes. Chairman Murphy and Member Mayer applied the expanded Thryv make-whole remedy — which covers out-of-pocket losses beyond lost wages — but explicitly flagged their doubts about whether it is legally permissible, leaving open the possibility of reconsideration if a three-member majority forms to revisit it. They took the same reserved-but-compliant approach to Valley Hospital Medical Center, which requires employers to continue dues checkoff even after a contract expires.
Significant Cases Cited
NLRB v. Burns International Security Services, 406 U.S. 272 (1972): Establishes that when a new employer takes over a business and hires a majority of the prior workforce, it must recognize and bargain with the incumbent union.
Fall River Dyeing & Finishing Corp. v. NLRB, 482 U.S. 27 (1987): Sets the standard for when a new employer’s bargaining obligation kicks in, based on whether it has hired enough of the predecessor’s employees to reflect continuity.
Wright Line, 251 NLRB 1083 (1980): Establishes the burden-shifting test for cases where an employer is accused of taking action against employees because of their union activity.
Johnnie’s Poultry Co., 146 NLRB 770 (1964): Requires employers to give employees specific assurances before questioning them about union matters in connection with a pending unfair labor practice case.
Thryv, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 22 (2022): Expands the Board’s remedial authority to cover out-of-pocket losses employees incur as a result of unlawful conduct, beyond just lost wages.
Starbucks Corporation, 374 NLRB No. 130, 19-CA-295708 (Published Board Decision)
The Board affirmed most of ALJ Andrew Gollin’s rulings in a case arising from Starbucks’ response to union organizing at four Portland, Oregon stores in 2022, sustaining violations related to unlawful discipline of two employees and an unlawful unilateral change to dress code enforcement, while dismissing the remaining allegations.
What the Board found unlawful. The Board upheld the ALJ’s finding that Starbucks violated Section 8(a)(3) and (1) by issuing final written warnings to baristas Trey Hawthorne and Chloe Peterson. The Hawthorne violation was straightforward: Starbucks accused him of working off the clock, but surveillance video showed he was not in the store during the alleged timeframe. The Board agreed with the ALJ that the stated reason was pretextual, particularly given that management had separately questioned Hawthorne about a pro-union tweet during an investigatory meeting. Peterson’s warning was tainted because it was partly premised on the allegation that she, as the supervising shift employee, had allowed Hawthorne to work off the clock — the same sham basis underlying his discipline.
The Board also upheld the Section 8(a)(5) violation involving barista Steven Sherman. Starbucks had historically handled dress code violations through verbal coaching, but issued Sherman a written “documented coaching” without first notifying the union or offering to bargain. The Board rejected Starbucks’ argument that under Care One at New Milford, 369 NLRB No. 109 (2020), no bargaining was required because the discipline was discretionary. Care One only protects discretionary discipline applied consistently with an employer’s established practice — here, issuing written discipline was itself a departure from that practice, bringing it squarely under NLRB v. Katz, 369 U.S. 736 (1962).
What was dismissed. The Board affirmed the ALJ’s dismissal of most other allegations. A threat to withhold announced wage and benefit increases, attributed to then-assistant store manager Jude Mackintosh, failed because the General Counsel did not establish that Mackintosh was a statutory supervisor under Section 2(11) or an agent with actual or apparent authority under Section 2(13) — her job title alone was insufficient, and there was no evidence management had used her as a conduit for communicating on these topics. Discharge and discipline claims involving employees Matthew Thornton, Arthur Pratt, and Brian Mendez were dismissed under Wright Line, 251 NLRB 1083 (1980), because the credited evidence showed Starbucks would have taken the same actions regardless of union activity — each had documented, recurring policy violations. A selective enforcement claim involving SSV Alicia Flores similarly failed because the evidence did not show the company had enforced its Register Operation and Customer Transactions policy more strictly after the union arrived.
Member Mayer dissented on the Sherman dress code violation, concluding that Sherman’s persistent and deliberate noncompliance — continuing after multiple verbal warnings — distinguished his situation from other employees and did not represent a change in enforcement practice.
Significant Cases Cited
Wright Line, 251 NLRB 1083 (1980): Establishes the burden-shifting framework for mixed-motive NLRA cases, requiring the General Counsel to show union activity was a motivating factor before the burden shifts to the employer to prove it would have taken the same action regardless.
NLRB v. Katz, 369 U.S. 736 (1962): Supreme Court decision holding that an employer violates Section 8(a)(5) by making a unilateral change to a mandatory subject of bargaining without first notifying the union and offering an opportunity to bargain.
800 River Road Operating Company d/b/a Care One at New Milford, 369 NLRB No. 109 (2020): Holds that an employer need not bargain before imposing discretionary discipline when doing so is consistent with its established policy or practice.
NLRB v. Kentucky River Community Care, 532 U.S. 706 (2001): Supreme Court decision clarifying that the party asserting supervisory status bears the burden of proof, and that supervisory authority must involve the exercise of independent judgment, not merely routine direction.
NLRB v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 U.S. 393 (1983): Supreme Court decision approving the Board’s Wright Line framework and confirming that once discriminatory motive is shown, the burden shifts to the employer to establish it would have acted the same absent the protected activity.
Starbucks Corporation, 374 NLRB No. 128, 19-CA-299573 (Published Board Decision)
The Board affirmed an ALJ’s finding that Starbucks violated Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA by coercively interrogating employees about their plans to participate in strikes at three Seattle-area stores in 2022.
The underlying facts were straightforward. After employees at the 5th & Pike, Westlake, and 505 Union Station stores sent strike notices to management, Starbucks supervisors — including a district manager, a store manager, and an assistant store manager — called and texted employees to ask whether they planned to work their scheduled shifts. None of the supervisors explained why they were asking or told employees they would face no consequences for their answers.
The core legal question was whether those inquiries constituted unlawful interrogation. The Board applied the framework from Preterm, Inc. and the totality-of-circumstances test from Rossmore House, finding violations under both. Asking employees whether they intend to work during a strike is functionally asking whether they intend to strike — conduct the Board has long treated as inherently coercive. Under Preterm and its progeny, an employer may ask employees about strike plans only if it simultaneously explains the purpose of the inquiry, assures employees there will be no retaliation, and avoids creating a coercive atmosphere. Starbucks did none of those things.
The Board rejected Starbucks’s argument that the Preterm safeguards amount to an impermissible per se rule, applying the majority’s reasoning from Sunbelt Rentals, Inc. (with Chairman Murphy and Member Mayer noting they participated for institutional reasons only). The Board also rejected Starbucks’s reliance on Mosher Steel Co. (1975), agreeing with the ALJ that the case does not support a rule permitting unconditioned staffing inquiries and that more than four decades of Board law have since required the Preterm safeguards.
In assessing the Rossmore House factors, the Board relied on Starbucks’s prior adjudicated unfair labor practices — including prior Board decisions finding unlawful discharges, threats, and surveillance of the same workforce — as evidence of the coercive context in which the interrogations occurred. The Board expressly declined to rely, as the ALJ had, on “perceived” unfair labor practices asserted in the strike notices, grounding its analysis instead in the company’s actual prior violations.
The Board issued a narrow cease-and-desist order and required notice posting at the two open stores and mailing to former employees at the closed 505 Union Station location.
Significant Cases Cited
Rossmore House, 269 NLRB 1176 (1984): Established the totality-of-circumstances test for evaluating whether employer interrogation of employees about union activity is unlawful.
Preterm, Inc., 240 NLRB 654 (1979): Established the three-part safeguard requirement — purpose, assurance against reprisal, non-coercive atmosphere — for employer inquiries about employee strike intentions.
Transportation Management Corp., 257 NLRB 760 (1981): Held that supervisors asking employees about strike participation is inherently coercive and subjects employees to fear of retaliation, regardless of whether explicit threats are made.
Sunbelt Rentals, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 24 (2022): Reaffirmed that the Preterm safeguards are not an impermissible per se rule, rejecting employer arguments that a legitimate staffing purpose alone renders such questioning lawful.
Stephens Media Group—Watertown, LLC, 371 NLRB No. 11 (2021): Applied the Preterm safeguards, confirming their continuing vitality as the governing framework for strike-intention interrogation cases.
Layla Transportation, Inc. A/K/a Layla Transportation and Trading, Inc., JD-36-26, 22-CA-325151 (ALJ Decision)
A New Jersey school bus company violated the NLRA by stonewalling contract negotiations and then illegally polling its workforce on union support, an ALJ ruled.
Layla Transportation had recognized Teamsters Local 469 under a 2019 settlement agreement and spent nearly three years bargaining toward a first contract, with only wages, union security, and contract duration left to resolve. The relationship broke down in late 2022, when the company disclosed it had been paying employees roughly $5 per hour more than what the parties had been using as the basis for their wage discussions — a disparity the union called an unfair labor practice. After a January 2023 session where the company’s owner left before the wage issue could be addressed, Respondent’s counsel repeatedly told the union she needed to check with the client and would follow up — but never did. From March through August 2023, no substantive response ever came. ALJ Gardner found that pattern reflected “an unlawful intent to stall negotiations,” citing Sunbelt Rentals, Inc., and constituted a refusal to bargain in good faith under Section 8(a)(5) and (1).
The company then sent the union a letter in October 2023 announcing it would poll employees about their desire for union representation. The ALJ found the poll independently unlawful on two grounds.
First, the company lacked the required “good faith reasonable belief” that the union had lost majority support. Under Struksnes Construction Co., an employer must have sufficient objective evidence of lost support before polling. The company’s owner pointed to conversations with dissatisfied employees stretching back to 2019, but many of those employees had long since left the company, some accounts were secondhand, and the total number of current employees who expressed opposition near the time of the poll was, by the owner’s own sworn affidavit, just two out of more than thirty unit employees. ALJ Gardner credited the union’s position that stale or remote expressions of dissatisfaction — and hearsay accounts — cannot support an employer’s good faith doubt, citing Wagon Wheel Bowl, Inc.
Second, even assuming a valid basis existed, the poll failed to satisfy the procedural safeguards Struksnes requires. The company presented no firsthand witness who could confirm that the secret-ballot requirement was actually met in the polling room. More significantly, the company’s dispatcher — a management figure — was stationed in an adjacent office throughout the polling, and employees knew he was there. The ALJ found his proximity created a coercive atmosphere, failing the fifth Struksnes safeguard. Most critically, the poll was conducted against the backdrop of the company’s ongoing refusal to bargain — itself an unremedied unfair labor practice — which independently rendered the poll coercive and unlawful.
The ALJ ordered Layla to cease its bargaining refusal and unlawful polling and to bargain on request with the union over the unit of school bus drivers, attendants, and lot employees at its Piscataway facility.
Significant Cases Cited
Struksnes Construction Co., 165 NLRB 1062 (1967): Established the five-part test an employer must satisfy to lawfully poll employees about their union support, including the threshold requirement of objective evidence that the union has lost majority status.
Sunbelt Rentals, Inc., 370 NLRB No. 102 (2021): Held that an employer’s multi-month refusal to submit a wage counterproposal, even after engaging on other economic issues, constituted bad faith bargaining.
Wagon Wheel Bowl, Inc., 310 NLRB 915 (1993): Held that employee statements of dissatisfaction that are remote in time do not constitute the kind of “objective, identifiable acts” needed to support an employer’s good faith doubt about a union’s majority status.
Burns International Security Services, 225 NLRB 271 (1976): Established that the burden falls on the employer to affirmatively prove each Struksnes safeguard was satisfied, against a background free from coercion.
Atlanta Hilton & Tower, 271 NLRB 1600 (1984): Articulated the standard that the duty to bargain in good faith requires a “sincere purpose to find a basis of agreement” and that employers must make a reasonable effort to resolve differences with the union.
Foss Maritime Company, LLC, 19-RC-386775 (Regional Election Decision)
Region 19 Regional Director Ronald K. Hooks has directed a mail ballot election among six line superintendents at Foss Maritime Company’s Seattle and Tacoma facilities after the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific filed a petition seeking to represent the workers. The only dispute was whether the election should be conducted by mail or in person.
Applying the standard from San Diego Gas and Electric, Regional Directors have broad discretion in choosing election method and may order mail ballots where circumstances make in-person voting difficult — including where employees are geographically scattered, work irregular schedules, or where a manual election would be an inefficient use of Board resources.
The Regional Director found mail balloting appropriate on two grounds. First, the employees work rotating on-call schedules under which only one person is on duty at each facility at any given time, making it unlikely that most employees would be available to vote during a fixed polling window. Second, committing Board personnel to two separate polling sites roughly 30 miles apart — with no guarantee anyone would be present to vote — would not be an efficient use of Agency resources.
The union argued that the 30-mile distance between facilities was insufficient to constitute “scattered” employees under San Diego Gas and Electric, and that workers were willing to cover each other’s shifts to allow in-person voting. The Regional Director rejected that argument, noting the employer had not agreed to allow shift coverage and that the union’s proposed one-hour polling windows might not give on-duty employees — who can be dispatched to a job site up to 20 minutes away — sufficient time to vote.
Significant Cases Cited
San Diego Gas and Electric, 325 NLRB 1143 (1998): Established the standard governing when a Regional Director may order a mail ballot election, identifying geographic scattering, scheduling irregularities, strikes, and resource efficiency as relevant factors.
Nouveau Elevator Industries, Inc., 326 NLRB 470 (1998): Held that a Regional Director’s broad discretion in choosing election method should not be overturned absent a clear abuse of that discretion.
Lutheran Home for the Aged Association - East D/B/a Davenport Lutheran Home, 25-RC-379991 (Regional Election Decision)
UFCW Local 431 petitioned to represent approximately 19 registered nurses and licensed practical nurses at a Davenport, Iowa long-term care facility. The employer argued the nurses are statutory supervisors under Section 2(11) of the NLRA and ineligible for union representation. Regional Director Colleen Maples disagreed and directed an election.
Under Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., a worker is a supervisor if they hold authority over any of twelve listed functions — assigning, disciplining, directing, and the like — exercise that authority using independent judgment, and act in the employer’s interest. The employer bears the burden of proof with specific, detailed evidence.
The employer argued nurses supervised CNAs and CMAs in all the ways that matter. The Regional Director found the evidence too thin or conflicting on every count. Nurses adjusted a pre-prepared daily schedule when CNAs called out, but those moves were constrained by the collective-bargaining agreement and a management-prepared seniority list — not independent judgment. The discipline record consisted of a handful of counseling forms (largely serving a reporting function) and two progressive discipline instances, both occurring days before the petition was filed; nurses also lacked access to personnel files, making meaningful progressive discipline impossible without management. The two instances where nurses sent employees home were either obvious enough to require no independent judgment or too intertwined with a manager’s simultaneous involvement to attribute to the nurse alone. Promotion recommendations were reviewed independently at two levels above the nurses. One nurse occasionally bought pizza for coworkers out of his own pocket — too personal and de minimis to count as “reward.” Accountability for CNA performance could not be separated from nurses’ own patient care obligations. And no nurse had ever actually processed a Step 1 grievance; all went directly to management at Step 3.
With no primary indicium established, secondary indicia — including management’s practice of calling nurses “supervisors” — were immaterial. The Regional Director ordered an election for June 17, 2026.
Significant Cases Cited
Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., 348 NLRB 686 (2006): Established the Board’s three-part supervisory status test and defined key terms including “assign,” “responsibly direct,” and “independent judgment.”
Veolia Transportation Services, Inc., 363 NLRB 902 & 1879 (2016): Clarified that discipline must affect job status without independent management review, and that conflicting evidence defeats the asserting party’s burden.
Republican Co., 361 NLRB 93 (2014): Held that verbal reprimands and warnings that do not affect job status are insufficient to establish supervisory authority.
Golden Crest Healthcare Center, 348 NLRB 727 (2006): Required tangible examples of actual supervisory authority; job descriptions and conclusory testimony are not enough.
NLRB v. Kentucky River Community Care, Inc., 532 U.S. 706 (2001): Supreme Court decision distinguishing ordinary professional judgment from the independent judgment required for supervisory status under the NLRA.