Labor Board Affirms That Macy's Cosmetics and Fragrance Employees In Saugus Can Form Union

The National Labor Relations Board has agreed that a group of cosmetics and fragrance employees at the Saugus location of iconic department store Macy's can elect to form a union. Attorney Warren Pyle successfully represented his longstanding client UFCW Local 1445 in this matter. Pyle persuaded the Board to rejected the employer's demands that all employees at the Saugus store must have a voice in whether to form a union.

When employees, who band together to improve their working conditions, ask for a vote to form a union, a critical preliminary decision involves what employee classifications should be in the proposed group, or bargaining unit. A common anti-union tactic of employers is to insist that other employees - beyond those who sought to form the union - should determine whether a union exists. The objective is to dilute support for a union. For example, if 10 cosmetics/fragrance employees want to form a union and 30 other sales employees do not, then no union could exist.

In this case, Macy's argued that cosmetics and fragrance employees should not be able to form a union by majority vote. Instead, Macy's argued that all Saugus employees or at least all sales employees at the store should decide by majority vote. The Board held that the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act are furthered by allowing a bargaining unit of workers who a readily identifiable group who share a community of interest. That other employees may share a community of interest does not mean that the initial group of employees should be denied the right to form a union.

The Board's decision was guided by its decision under Specialty Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center of Mobile, 357 NLRB No. 83 (2011), enfd. sub nom. Kindred Nursing Centers East, LLC v. NLRB, 727 F.3d 552 (6th Cir.2013). This decision has clarified that employer objections to union organizing must show that the employees the union did not seek to organize share an "overwhelming community of interest" with the employees that the union does seek to organize. The Board confirmed that the Employer failed to meet its burden here. As a result of the Board's decision, the ballots filed about two years ago will finally be counted.