In a case involving a Macy’s department store cosmetics counter, the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday further expanded its recent precedents allowing for so-called “micro-unions.” The ruling will make it easier for unions to organize individual parts of an employer’s workforce, a strategy Big Labor is increasingly turning towards to bolster its sagging membership.
Until recently, federal labor law required that a union must try to get the backing of a majority of all a workplace’s employees to be certified. This can create a fairly high bar that labor organizers cannot always clear. However, in a 2011 case called Specialty Hardware, the NLRB reversed decades of precedent and said it would allow the organization of individual groups in a workforce.
