Background
Lechmere, Inc. owned a retail store in a shopping plaza in Newington, Connecticut, a metropolitan area near Hartford, and it also was part owner of the plaza's parking lot. Employees of Lechmere, Inc. who drove to work used the lot to park their vehicles during their shifts. The parking lot was separated from a public highway by a strip of land that was almost entirely public property. Local union organizers, not employees of Lechmere, Inc., attempted to organize Lechmere employees by placing promotional handbills on the windshields of cars parked in the employee area of the lot. Lechmere then denied the organizers access to the lot. This act caused the organizers instead to distribute their handbills from the aforementioned strip of public land between the lot and the highway.
Local 919 of the United Food and Commercial Workers filed an unfair labor practice charge to the NLRB (the National Labor Relations Board), claiming that Lechmere had violated §7 of the NLRA (the National Labor Relations Act) by barring them access to the parking lot. The applicable language of the law cited was the guarantee of the NLRA that employees have "the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations" (§7) and that it is an unfair labor practice for an employer "to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees" in exercising their §7 rights. The NLRB affirmed the union's grievance, and the Court of Appeals enforced the NLRB's decision. [2]
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take collective action such as strikes. Central to the act was a ban on company unions. The act was written by Senator Robert F. Wagner, passed by the 74th United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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National Labor Relations Board v. Sands Manufacturing Co., 306 U.S. 332 (1939), is United States labor law case, decided by a majority of 5 to 2 by the Supreme Court of the United States, which overturned a decision by the National Labor Relations Board because it was not supported by substantial evidence. The Court defined collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act to mean that proposals and responses to proposals were pending, and that future meetings were being planned. Absent such conditions, bargaining was not occurring. The Court also held that an employer did not violate the Act if it chose to deal with the employees on an individual basis.
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Emporium Capwell v. Western Addition, 420 U.S. 50 (1975), was a United States Supreme Court case. The court reversed and remanded the Court of Appeals ruling. The Supreme Court ruled on the basis of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA).
Sure-Tan, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 467 U.S. 883 (1984) is a US labor law case that resulted in a split decision before the US Supreme Court. By a 7-2 majority, the Court ruled that undocumented immigrant workers were “employees” covered by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). However, by a 5-4 majority the Court ruled that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was limited in its remedies for penalizing employers who fired undocumented workers for union organizing in violation of the NLRA. The decision was one of a series limiting the rights of immigrant workers and the power of the NLRB culminating with Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB.
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