Employers are at the receiving end of the enhanced remedies championed by General Counsel Jennifer A. Abruzzo of the National Relations Labor Board. General Counsel Abruzzo has taken the interesting avenue of highlighting the success of the board in implementing these changes. On June 23, the General Counsel released her Memorandum GC 22-06, which essentially touted the enhanced remedies, or what she described as “full remedies in settlements.” Included in the memorandum were examples of regions securing compensation for derivative economic harm. That is, employers were forced to provide not just full back pay and benefits for employees, but also additional economic relief, including fees for late car loan payments or late rent, or reimbursement of interest payments on loans that were taken out by employees to cover living expenses and even the “cost of baby formula due to the loss of workplace breast pump station.” Further, General Counsel Abruzzo highlighted that the terms of settlement have included letters of apology to reinstated employees, mailing of the notice to all employees who had been employed at the time of or during the previous year, permitting union use of company bulletin boards, and even creating a video recording of a board agent reading the notice of violation while a company representative is in the frame, to be distributed to employees at the workplace. One can only imagine where else that video is distributed.  

Labor Law Insider attorney Terry Potter of Husch Blackwell not only touches on this memorandum, but also reviews developments related to the Starbucks organizing campaign. There, the board is demanding remedies of bargaining orders and other broad relief in the context of alleged unfair labor practices. Finally, listeners will hear of bargaining orders even without any majority showing of union support by the employees. 

Terry also describes at least one potential strategy of taking a settlement which might not be approved by a regional office of the NLRB to the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) assigned to hear the case, as the ALJ may not feel as beholden to the General Counsel’s mandate of harsh remedies.