Catherwood LibraryILR School

In a landmark ruling, the NLRB has overturned over a decade of precedent in allowing labor unions to represent bargaining units consisting of both employees employed by a single organization and employees employed by that same organization through another company. The decision in Miller & Anderson, Inc. overturns the 2004 decision in Oakwood Care Center, which disallowed inclusion of solely employed employees and jointly employed employees in the same unit absent consent of the employers. Members of the Board in favor of this ruling cited the shifting American workforce as a main reason for their reconsideration of NLRA Section 9(b)’s definition of an appropriate bargaining unit as staffing, temporary work, and outsourcing have skyrocketed in popularity. This ruling aims to strengthen jointly-employed employees’ bargaining power and prevent the occurrence of “’parallel organizing drives’”.