(Pittsburgh, PA) Post-Gazette | Impact of ruling saying supervisors aren't union minimal so far

[Heidi]

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

By Anya Sostek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In the run up to the National Labor Relations Board's decisions last year on what are known as the "Kentucky River cases," labor groups feared that a possible eight million people could lose the right to unionize if the rulings that they billed as "among the most important the board will decide this decade" did not go their way.

As expected, the rulings six months ago did not come down on the side of organized labor. But the real-world effect of the cases -- which concern the standards for whether workers are considered supervisors, and therefore ineligible for union protections -- has been barely perceptible so far.

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In October, the NLRB ruled in the case of Oakwood Healthcare Inc. that the full-time charge nurses there should be considered supervisors because they assign duties to other nurses and exercise independent judgment. That case was one of three meant to clarify rulings stemming from an earlier case involving charge nurses at Kentucky River Community Care in Pippa Passes, Ky.

Before the judgment, the labor-supported Economic Policy Institute had predicted that if charge nurses or those in equivalent positions in other professions were considered to be supervisors, it "could take away the right to join a union and bargain collectively from 8 million Americans throughout the labor market."

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http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07094/774819-28.stm
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More about the Kentucky River cases: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/29/93430/9719
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-1815.ZO.html