Instead of “Neutrality Agreements,” call them “A Certain Amount of Cooperation Agreements”

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued an opinion on December 6, 2010, holding that an employer did not violate Section 8(a)(2) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act (i.e., rendering unlawful support to a labor organization) by entering into and maintaining a Letter of Agreement that set forth: (1) ground rules for union organizing; (2) procedures for voluntary recognition upon proof of majority support; and (3) substantive issues that collective bargaining would address if and when the employer recognized the union at the unorganized facility.  While this decision is not surprising, it is still big news (at least in in the labor law world).

Indeed, for those of us who have been anticipating rulemaking from the NLRB, there is this nugget, “[w]e leave for another day the adoption of a general standard for regulating prerecognition negotiations between unions and employer.  As the Supreme Court has observed, there are issues of labor law where the “’nature of the problem, as revealed by unfolding variant situations,’ requires ‘an evolutionary process for its rational response, not a quick, definitive formula as a comprehensive answer.’”

http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Board%20Decisions/356/v35649.pdf