The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued two decisions that make sweeping changes to current labor laws and will impact senior living communities. The rulings allow unions to target segments of senior living communities’ workforce and eliminate employees’ right to secret ballot elections in certain situations.

The decision in the Specialty Healthcare case changes the way unions can petition for a union election in senior living and long term health care. Previously, unions were required to show sufficient interest among all service employees, in order to petition for an election. Now, unions can target one specific type of employee. This new rule could allow different classifications of service employees, such as caregivers, housekeepers, or food service employees, to be represented by separate unions, or one single job classification could be unionized while the other staff members are not. 

The decision in the Lamons Gasket case reverses a previous decision that permitted NLRB supervised secret ballot elections, even if management and organized labor agreed to form a union based on signed union cards (card check.) In this same scenario, the new decision allows a vote for or against a union based solely on the card check method, which allows both management and organized labor to have knowledge of each employee’s preference. Absent federally supervised secret ballot elections, employees lose their right to privacy and can find themselves in uncomfortable situations, including being subjected to coercion.

ALFA firmly opposes both of the recent NLRB decisions, because the new standards threaten employee and employer rights as well as the affordability of senior living for the residents it serves.


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