NLRB News: NLRB General Counsel Griffin issues Memorandum on the Agency's 10(j) program

National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Richard F. Griffin, Jr. issued a Memorandum on the Agency’s 10(j) program affirming the Agency’s priority in continuing efforts to obtain immediate relief in cases that present a significant risk of remedial failure. Section 10(j) of the National Labor Relations Act authorizes the National Labor Relations Board to seek temporary injunctions against employers and unions in federal district courts to stop unfair labor practices while the case is being litigated before administrative law judges and the Board. General Counsel Griffin stated his intention to “aggressively seek 10(j) relief where necessary to preserve the status quo and the efficacy of final Board orders.”

General Counsel Griffin endorsed the initiatives begun by former General Counsel Ronald Meisburg involving first contract bargaining cases and by former Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon involving discharges during union organizing campaigns indicating that efforts to seek injunctive relief in those cases “have led to extremely positive results.” He then underscored his interest in having field offices also seek injunctive relief “in appropriate cases involving a successor’s refusal to bargain and, more importantly, successor refusal to hire cases” since the status of the employee’s chosen collective-bargaining representative in successor cases is particularly vulnerable to unfair labor practices. General Counsel Griffin noted that, in refusal to bargain cases, unlawful conduct by a new employer that undermines the representative “will lead employee disaffection, concomitant loss of bargaining power, and loss of employee benefits that cannot be restored by a final Board order.” He further stated that, in cases where a successor employer refuses to hire employees to avoid bargaining with an incumbent union, “the potential scattering of those employees creates an even greater risk that a final Board order will not effectively restore the parties to establish a good faith bargaining relationship.”

The General Counsel’s Memorandum directs field offices to seek remedies that will restore pre-violation conditions and ensure that employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act are restored. It also references the roll out of a training program for field personnel, which will include new training material and resources to assist them in investigating and litigating 10(j) cases.

The Memorandum can be found here.

Information on 10(j) cases can be found here.

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