Shutdown extends to local NLRB (UPDATE)

Listen to this article

By Beth Kevit

Wauwatosa attorney Martin Kuhn was in the middle of a National Labor Relations Board trial when the federal government shut down.

He went to a hearing in the Milwaukee NLRB office Oct. 1 knowing he would not be able to finish the case, he said, and he was shown the door around 11 a.m.

“We got to, I think, a natural breaking point in the proceedings,” Kuhn said, “and the judge said, ‘OK, that’s it.’”

And as the shutdown drags on, he said, Sandra Bishop continues waiting to find out whether she will get her job back. Bishop is a member of the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 9, which Kuhn, an attorney with Jeffrey S. Hynes & Associates SC, represents.

Local 9 filed a complaint against the Building Construction Laborers Union Local 113, Kuhn said, when negotiations between the unions on a collective bargaining agreement for Bishop and another office worker fell apart in February.

The Laborers declared an impasse, Kuhn said, he disagreed, and the case wound up with the NLRB.

“We still had room to move,” he said, “and we were not clear at all what the employer’s best offer was.”

Matthew Robbins, an attorney with Milwaukee-based The Previant Law Firm SC who represents the Laborers, declined to comment on the negotiations or complaint. He said only that he is not concerned about the delay.

“From time to time,” he said, “trials or hearings get postponed for various reasons.”

Anthony Neira, business manager for the Laborers, said he is not concerned either. Calls for further comments from Neira were not immediately returned.

When the NLRB receives a charge from a union, business or employee, the agency investigates. If that investigation finds the charge worthy of a hearing, the NLRB files a complaint.

That was the case in the dispute between the unions. According to a complaint filed in May by Benjamin Mandelman, acting regional director for the NLRB office in Milwaukee, the collective bargaining agreement between the unions expired in 2011.

The unions negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement that included, among other things, pay raises for the Local 9 members employed by the Laborers, according to the complaint. But when Bishop tried to collect the raise, the Laborers suspended her for two days.

The Laborers then imposed a new contract, declared the impasse in negotiations and fired Bishop, who was the senior Local 9 member in the office, according to the complaint.

The Laborers deny finalizing a collective bargaining agreement after the 2011 expiration and deny failing to bargain in good faith, according to an answer the union filed with the NLRB. Bishop was fired, according to the answer, for misconduct or unsatisfactory work, and it was Local 9 that refused to continue negotiations.

Bishop referred a request for comment to James Hall, an attorney with Milwaukee-based Hall Burce & Olson SC. Hall is representing Bishop in her complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which involves the same issue as her NLRB complaint. The EEOC matter, Hall said, was still in the investigation stage and also has been suspended.

Bishop is troubled, Hall said, by the delay in the NLRB trial.

“It means, essentially, justice delayed,” he said. “It means uncertainty in terms of time.”

Dawn Martin, Local 9’s business manager, said she is worried about the delay in the trial. Her union has presented its case, she said, but the judge stopped the trial before the Laborers could begin presenting its side.

“I can’t help but wonder,” she said, “if it gives them an advantage to have this added time.”

Local 9 is seeking lost wages and Bishop’s reinstatement. Kuhn said he is concerned the delay could extend past the end of the shutdown. The administrative law judge assigned to the case, Robert Giannasi, will have to return from Washington, D.C., and witnesses’ schedules will have to be juggled.

“When it resumes,” Kuhn said, “you kind of have to get yourself back up and running and refresh your recollection.”

— Follow Beth on Twitter