Micro-unions creating a major mess

Ignoring Americans' growing disdain of unions--for instance, Big Labor's defeat in Wisconsin--the Obama White House and the NLRB keeps pushing in the wrong direction.

It's micro-unions initiative, which will create chaos for businesses, is one example.

From the International Business Times:

Here's what a nursing home in Mobile, Ala., has in common with the regal Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan: they're both facing "micro-unions," groups of employees who organize apart from the rest of a company's workforce.

Last month the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that employees of the women's shoe department in the company's iconic store on Manhattan's tony Fifth Avenue may be represented by Local 1102, the Westbury, N.Y.-based affiliate of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Union.

Dallas-based Neiman Marcus Group Inc., which owns Bergdorf Goodman, is appealing the NLRB decision and major trade associations are supporting Neiman Marcus. If the appeal to the NLRB fails, Neiman Marcus can puruse its claims in civil court.

"This case is a result of a government agency run amok," National Retail Federal President and CEO Matthew R. Shay said in a statement after the NRF joined other business advocacy groups in supporting Neiman Marcus's appeal. "Over the past three years, the NLRB has steamrolled over long-settled precedent and procedures in an overt effort to empower Big Labor over the objections of retailers and the broader business community."

IBT also reports that fifty registered nursing assistant positions in Alabama were deemed significantly different for those workers to form their own micro-union.

Hiring managers might look at this mess and decide that having fewer workers is the solution to this problem.

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