The National Labor Relations Board handed down a decision yesterday allowing temporary workers to bargain alongside permanent employees if they share similar job descriptions.
The decision in Miller & Anderson overturns a George W. Bush-era (2004) NLRB ruling, Oakwood Care Center, that stated that temporary and permanent workers who want to bargain as a single unit must first obtain the consent of both the employer supplying the temporary workers and the employer using the temps.
It reinstates a Clinton-era (2000) ruling, M.B. Sturgis, that employees do not need such consent.
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed briefs favoring retaining the 2004 Oakwood decision. The AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) favored overturning it.
The NLRB’s decision yesterday follows a ruling in August 2015, Browning Ferris Industries, that companies who use temp workers are considered joint employers of those workers and share responsibility with the temp agencies for liabilities regarding those workers.
Here's a sampling of the Twitter reaction to yesterday's ruling:
