It is no secret that many employers take steps to try and keep their workplaces union-free.  One of the newer concerns for employers in that camp is the possibility that employees could form a “micro bargaining unit,” which is a unit of employees that make up only a small portion of the workforce. 

In a 2011 case, Specialty Healthcare, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) established a new standard for determining appropriate bargaining units.  Specifically, the Board stated that, in evaluating a potential unit, it would focus on the community of interest among the petitioning employees.  According to the Board in that case, factors such as the extent of common supervision, interchange of employees, and geographic considerations should all be taken into account when evaluating a proposed unit.

Specialty Healthcare also placed a significant burden on employers trying to challenge smaller units.  The Board stated that, if an employer wished to argue that a unit should include additional employees, the employer needs to show that employees in a larger unit have an “overwhelming” community of interest with those in the proposed smaller unit.  That’s a higher burden than what has been applicable in the past, and not one easy to meet.

The effects of Specialty Healthcare were evident in a more recent Board decision.  In Macy’s Inc., the Board recently confirmed that 41 Macy’s cosmetic and fragrance department sales employees could form a bargaining unit.  Those 41 employees made up about one-third of the employees at that Macy’s store.  Macy’s argued that this unit was inappropriate because cosmetic and fragrance employees shared an overwhelming community of interest with the other sales employees, but the Board saw it differently.

The Board noted several factors that established the community of interest among the cosmetic and fragrance employees: they all worked in the same department, were supervised by the same manager, had limited contact with other sales employees, and were paid on the same commission-based based structure.  Additionally, the Board pointed out that Macy’s rarely transferred employees between the cosmetic and fragrance department and other store departments.

While the Macy’s, Inc. case was not a positive development for employers, the NLRB then rejected a proposed micro-unit about a week later in a different case at Bergdorf-Goodman, a Nieman Marcus subsidiary.  In that case, the Board found that salon shoes salespeople and contemporary shoe salespeople lacked a community of interest.  In so deciding, the Board noted that the proposed unit in that case was not created based on any administrative or operational lines established by the employer.  Additionally, the employees had different department managers, different floor managers, and different directors of sales.

While both of these cases dealt with the retail industry, the results are important to employers in any sector, since the Specialty Healthcare standard certainly can be applied to create micro-bargaining units in other industries.  In fact, employers can probably expect unions to try organizing smaller bargaining units within larger companies, particularly where efforts to organize larger groups have proved unsuccessful.  This strategy allows unions to select pro-union employee groups and increase their likelihood of winning an election.

If there’s one proactive takeaway from these cases, it’s that employers need to think in advance about how they can make themselves less vulnerable to micro-unit organizing.  For example, cross-training employees and having them work in different departments makes it less likely a union could demonstrate a community of interest among a small group of employees.  Of course, any steps taken to combat against micro-unit organizing also need to be evaluated for their operational feasibility.  In most cases, it’s probably best that employers contact experienced legal counsel to weigh the pros and cons involved.