Seiu, United Healthcare Workers-West v. National Labor Relations Board

This union petition for review and National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) cross-petition for enforcement concern 10092 Section 8(g) of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 158 (g). Section 8(g) applies only to hospitals and requires a union to give ten days’ notice before beginning any “concerted refusal to work.” In this case, Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers-West (“the Union”) gave only four days’ notice before its members collectively declined to work overtime, as the Union had urged them to do. The Union nevertheless contends it was relieved of the ten-day statutory notice requirement because its collective bargaining agreement with the hospital provided that the hospital could not force an individual employee to work overtime.

Over a dissent, the NLRB held that an individual’s exercise of the right to decline particular overtime work is not the same as a collective refusal to do any overtime work, and that the Union violated the statutory ten-day notice requirement. “The Chevron doctrine requires that this court defer to the NLRB’s interpretation of the NLRA if its interpretation is rational and consistent with the…