Union Expansion Issues for US Employers
Micro Units, Employee Free Choice Act, and Armour Globe
Key Rulings of the NLRB and Their Effects
Timothy M McDonald
Webster University

Abstract
There are three major areas of recent changes to unionization. These changes are making unionization efforts easier expanding the burden of employers to defend against these efforts. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings and congressional actions in both the House and Senate have eased the way you collect signatures for election of unionization. Additional NLRB rulings have made it much easier and cheaper for unions to unionize with much faster elections and easing of rules regarding who should be included in a unionization vote.
The Employees Free Choice Act has the potential to remove the secret vote portion of election to join or form a union. In addition to leveling fines on employers found to have committed unfair labor practices, it would impose binding federal arbitration in the contract negotiations after a short period of days.
Micro Unit defined bargaining units have eased the way for unions to pinpoint very small pro union portions of a population where the percentage of yes votes is easier to obtain. This smaller unit can then “salt” the larger population waiting for the opportune time to expand. From this waiting position they can seek further micro units within the same store with a horizontal strategy of the population type but a different location.
Lastly the expanded usage of Armour Globe elections since the 1940s has exponentially accelerated in the past ten years. These macro definitions of communities of interest have grown larger and larger with the burden of proof shifting from a preponderance of commonality to a mere relationship desire. Where a small group has a community of interest with 400 unionized workers and also with an additional 5,000 non-unionized workers the NLRB has stated that the community of interest exist in enough of a fashion to declare Armour Globe election rather than a straight self-constituted election of their own independent bargaining unit.
Three Key Changes Facing Unionization in the United States
Over the past several years’ changes in law brought forth by legislation and interpretations from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have influenced how employers manage their union containment strategies. These changes from the NLRB and congress will be discussed in this paper. Specifically the loosely defined parameters of Micro-units, and Armour Globe doctrine by the NLRB and the Free Choice Act proposed by congress in 2009.
Employee Free Choice Act
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was introduced both in the house and Senate in 2007 and although currently stalled is finding traction within the confines of the NLRB. Sometimes referred to as Card Check, EFCA is simply changing the ways employees vote to unionize. EFCA allows for unionization authorization cards to be gathered from employees who are part of the class wishing to be represented by a union. Unions hoping to unionize these employees today must gather signature cards from at least 30% of the population. A private vote is then held and 50% plus one person must vote for representation. If the vote is a yes vote then the employer and union begin to formalize a union agreement. EFCA strives to change this only require signature cards be collected by the certifiable quantity, eliminating the secret vote. This change is important for the following reasons.
Signature cards are obtained in several ways. Most common collection methods are to be approached by a union organizer asking that you sign a card guaranteeing your right to vote for a union. The approach is made in a couple of methods. First during rest periods or before and after work within the employees common work areas, lunchroom, break rooms, and hallways. The second most common method of collection has unionizers using list of employees personal residence addresses forced to be supplied to them from the employer’s records by NLRB rulings. These home visits consist of an organizing team visiting the employee’s home explaining the benefits of representation. The unionizer is allowed to state that the card is revocable but isn’t required to explain this or how the employee revokes the card. Furthermore the card is enforceable in perpetuity so the union can collect the cards over a period of years and does not need to revalidate the intent of the signor since validation comes from the secret vote. With the advent of EFCA the secret vote no longer exist. This means a card signed in 2012 is used to indicate the employee’s desire two years later. Proponents of this state that the employee can always revoke the card, but as seen in the sample attached there is no expiration date on the card.

A second reason opponents make regards direct or indirect coercion. When approached to sign the card intense peer pressure can be deployed and daily visits until I sign to have them leave them alone. Imagine every other evening the doorbell rings with two representatives at your doorstep, one method to regain your peace is to sign the card and then just vote no when they are not standing over my shoulder. Coworkers can see my card or lack thereof but they can’t see my private vote.

Beside the issue of the authorization card the EFCA has other issues: 1. The requirement of binding arbitration if a card check election is held and results in unionization, and then an agreement is not met in a combined 130 days. Today most newly formed unions take for longer than 130 days ensuring a majority of new contracts will have government mandated arbitrators under the direction of the current pro labor NLRB. (Labor Union Report, 2014) a. What’s wrong with this contract arbitration? i. If an employee finds they were not informed correctly when they signed the form they cannot decertify for at least two years. ii. Cannot vote to ratify or reject the government contract iii. Cannot modify the government contract iv. Cannot strike in protest. 2. Punitive fines up to $20,000 per unfair labor practice, but only enforceable against employers not unions. This leaves the employee subject to union intimidation, coercion, and interference of their Section Seven rights to refrain from union activities. (Labor Union Report, 2014)
Micro-units
When organizing an employee group the desiring organizer must show a common community of interest that the proposed employee group have uniquely in common. This is referred to as a community of interest. Micro-units are very finite subsets of what has previously been considered a potential bargaining unit. Traditionally a unit would be a complete operational unit such as a total Macy’s store or all workers in Boeing production unit. A micro-unit is a subset of this population. Macy’s store 23 is a traditional unit while the fragrance department workers within store 23 are a micro-unit.
Whether the traditional unit or the newer micro-unit there must be a common way to differentiate this population from other populations. These differentiations are referred to a community of interest. For now, let’s look at the differences this ability has on determining a unionization effort. If I desire to unionize a traditional worker pool such as Macy’s store 23 I must determine the workforce parameters I am saying share these common characteristics. It may be things that distinguish this population as well as that unite them. All workers in Macy’s store number 23 as opposed to all Macy’s stores in New York or all retail sales clerks in a particular store or geographical region of common stores. The sheer size of the population makes it harder to unionize since the required 50% plus one threshold is larger as well. The initial stage of collecting signature cards that are a minimum of 30% is also harder the larger the population is. Add geographical diversification and we add more complexity and work needed to gain a collective majority for unionization. Thus the smaller more compact the targeted population is the lighter the unionization burden becomes.
The characteristics we spoke about differentiating the worker pools are referred to as community of interest. The main community of interest looked at are: 1. Similarity in skills, interests, duties, and working conditions is typically looked at in three ways. a. Internal company classifications – This is typically defined by a company’s internal Information Technology (IT) or compensation coding. An example from The Boeing Company would be a BAMB P3 B67 which stands for BA-information technology, MB-Programmer Analyst, P3-proffesional FSLA exemption level 3, B67-Windows Programming. i. You can depersonalize these from company to company by looking at the Department of Labor’s, Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard Occupational Classifications. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013) b. Functional Alignment – This is typically a larger category such as Information Technology or engineering but can become very narrow such as Information Security within engineering applications in mainframe applications. This the difference between a model enthusiast, cars, boats, planes and trains, and a model train enthusiast down to a one half grade scale model trains from the 1800s enthusiast. This granularity is important when looking at micro-units. The population shrinks at every level imagine having 50% plus one of all model enthusiast agree to a common association for their hobby instead of only the one half grade scale train modelers. c. Working conditions – It professionals typically work in office environments but some types work more closely aligned to production areas in specialty shops. Others may spend all day every day in a SKIFF locked in working on classified projects. This working environment can differentiate by physical environment, the where the work is done, I can draw a circle on the organization’s design stating all person in a buildings or as small as skiff 378 of the 300 building in site location MESA, Az. Same issue as the modelers, the larger the circle the harder the agreement is to be reached. 2. Functional integration of the plant, including interchange and contact among the employees. Sticking with IT workers a functional integration refers to the integration of values with systems of action and it therefore involves priorities and allocations of diverse value component among proper occasion and relationships. It is referred to the extent to which disabled and nondisabled persons were using the same functions and resources in the environment (Functional Integration, 2008). So I as an IT specialist interact with other IT professionals but I also interact with customers, suppliers, other parallel functions such as engineering or accounting depending on what my daily task is. The intersection of my interactions with others and yours defines how closely integrated we are. The more overlaps the more likely we are to have a community of interest in this regard. 3. The employer's organizational and supervisory structure d. Companies maintain organizational structures to enable them to run their daily business. This structure defines the relationships employees have in common from a supervisory position. Most would say they report to the Chief Executive Officer and have that in common, but what about the tooling IT manager for South Carolina’s Boeing 787 production line. Does the employee supporting missile tooling in Salt Lake City, Utah hold this same relationship with that supervisor? What about the KC-46 IT tooling employee in San Antonio, TX? Depending on how far the circle must be expanded to include these employees into a common organizational structure determines the community of interest in supervision or shared structures. In the example above one has six layers of managers before they hit a common leader. 4. The bargaining history e. The history that a group of employees hold in common with past bargaining is best defined by shared benefits and conditions of employment. Does the employee in community one have the same dress code, hours of operation, sick leave and vacation usage abilities. Do they have the same infrastructure of visibility in common employee websites that explain their benefits? Do they share a single profit sharing or are they separated by separate calculations or by one segment having no profit sharing while the other does not. The larger the circle needed to encompass them all the less community of interest they share. 5. The extent of union organization among the employees f. Back to IT professionals from previous examples. If employees in one site are organized by SPEEA, while others Teamsters, yet others by the IAM, lastly at many sites employees have chosen to represent themselves to management we would say their community of interest is not very close.
There is no specific order of these interest, nor the need for all or any specific percentage of commonality. Each side of the unionization issue must define and defend their belief that the community of interest parameter is common enough.
In closing this portion on micro-units you can see that the smaller the population that you can show a community of interest the easier it is to unionize. Once unionized you can then move to utilize the third area of this paper Armour Globe elections.
Armour Globe
Armour globe is a method of determining if a set of employees hold a “community of Interest” close enough to petition the NLRB for an election without the need for signature cards. If successful, adds the employees to an existing bargaining unit’s contract. Earlier in the paper when discussing the community of interest elements we were showing the advantage was to draw the circle as small as possible to make it easier to unionize a portion of a population rather than have to tackle the whole community. With the Armour Globe doctrine you now want to have a large as possible breath of reach to draw a common circle around a non-unionized population and one that is already unionized. It should not be so broad as to show an equal commonality to another non-unionized population. In 19-RC-15419 THE BOEING COMPANY, Employer and SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING EMPLOYEES IN AEROSPACE, IFPTE, LOCAL 2001, AFL-CIO , Union Boeing attempted to show that although there was a community of interest between the two Field Service Representatives (FSR) in Miami and other FSRs in Seattle within the union, there was an equal or greater community of interest with FSRs in California holding no union representation. So one side throwing a large rope over the populations while the other trying to show with the lasso that large you catch just as many without the union representative.
If the union wins a dispute over whether two engineers in Miami can join the union that represents more than 25,000 workers at Boeing and other companies, it becomes much easier and less costly for the union to organize workers outside metro Puget Sound. That means the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace has a better chance of re-unionizing the more than 4,000 engineering jobs that Boeing has moved, or plans to move, out of Washington (Portside Staff Writer, 2014).
The determination of an accepted Armour Globe election means the employees are now part of an existing union and the need to establish its own contract through bargaining is not needed. In the above case the cost of living and labor markets for the FSR is a fraction of the Seattle market in Miami making the promise to the two workers that they would receive the same benefits and wages as their Seattle brethren very attractive. A traditional unionization even with the same union would have meant the bargaining could have resulted in substantially the same levels of total compensation they currently possessed. Although the same benefits and wages they now have to pay union dues effectively reducing the equity status. In addition, a work stoppage of the entire FSR population of Miami, two employees, is much less effective than that of 25,000 brethren walking out.
Conclusion
The combined usage of EFCA card check rules, micro-units, and Armour Globe election rules are a powerful shift in favor of ease of unionization. Although halted for now, EFCA would allow unions much more latitude and opportunities for abuse in unionization efforts. Starting with Armour Globe attempts if blocked by having to small a community you can use this same ruling as an affirmative of the smaller Micro Unit approach to forming a community. If successful with one micro organization unions can slam their foot further into this door by Armour Globe elections of further expansions. Today one small fragrance counter tomorrow a region’s fragrance counters, tomorrow a nation’s fragrance counters. Then expand even further showing a community of interest between fragrance workers and women’s jewelry workers, small of course we have plenty of time, and money, after all we can always expand latter.

References
Functional Integration. (2008, March 31). Retrieved from Society and Culture: http://society--culture.blogspot.com/2008/03/functional-integration.html
Labor Union Report. (2014, August ). Employee Free Choice Act. Retrieved from LaborUnionReport.com: http://laborunionreport.com/employee-free-choice-act/
Portside Staff Writer. (2014, June 23). Outcome of Boeing-SPEEA Dispute Could Have Major Implications - See more at: htOutcome of Boeing-SPEEA Dispute Could Have Major Implications. Retrieved from Portside: http://portside.org/2014-06-23/outcome-boeing-speea-dispute-could-have-major-implications
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2013, March 18). Standard Occupational Classification. Retrieved from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Division of Occupational Employment Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/soc/