NLRB Approves Micro Bargaining Unit Limited to Cosmetics and Fragrances Department Employees at Macy’s, Jones Day Labor Blog

On Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB" or the "Board") issued its decision in Macy’s Inc., 361 NLRB. No. 4 (Case No. 01-RC-091163), affirming the finding of the Acting Regional Director below and approving the union’s petitioned-for micro bargaining unit limited to 41 store employees assigned to the cosmetics and fragrances department. Applying the standard set forth in 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), the Board concluded that the cosmetics and fragrances department employees constituted “a readily identifiable group who share a community of interest, and that [Macy’s] has not met its burden of demonstrating that the other selling and nonselling employees it seeks to include share an overwhelming community of interest with the petitioned-for employees so as to require their inclusion in the unit.” 361 NLRB No. 4 at slip op. 1. As the Board majority explained, under Specialty Healthcare, once the petitioned-for unit satisfies the standard of being “readily identifiable as a group (based on job classifications, departments, functions, work locations, skills or similar factors), and the Board finds that the employees in the group share a community of interest,” then “the burden is on the proponent of a larger unit to demonstrate that the additional employees it seeks to include share an"overwhelming" community of interest with the petitioned-for employees, such that there ‘is no legitimate basis upon which to exclude certain employees from’ the larger unit because the traditional community of interest factors ‘overlap almost completely.’” Id. at 7 (quoting Specialty Healthcare, 357 NLRB No. 83, slip op. at 11-13).

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