In the case of Hard Rock Holdings v. NLRB, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the National Labor Relations Board in the Board’s request to seek enforcement of a court order directing Hard Rock Holdings, LLC., to bargain in good faith with a labor union.

Hard Rock Holdings owns the famous Hard Rock Cafe. The quick facts of the case are as follows: The NLRB certified an election where a bargaining unit was named to represent the valet parking employees of the company.

The first prong of this test looks at whether the description of the bargaining unit is ambiguous, as contained in the stipulated bargaining unit agreement. If ambiguous, then intent of the parties must be considered, in light of extrinsic evidence. If still unclear, the court must then apply the community-of-interests test.

Eight dual-role employees voted. These employees may have fallen out of the Union representation but they nevertheless appeared on the voting list. The NLRB sustained the Union’s challenge and disallowed those votes, but Hard Rock raised the issue that the NLRB made a mistake in its initial analysis that the dual-role employees should have been excluded from the Union. The court ruled that the NLRB established a sufficient record of analysis under this test to support its conclusions on the intent of the parties and there was no error in the NLRB’s application.

As for the conduct of the NLRB agent at the election, the court found that Hard Rock introduced no evidence that showed how the lack of ID badges materially affected the result of the election.

Given that the court found the NLRB to be within its discretion, the court allowed enforcement of the order that Hard Rock bargain with the union.

Related Resources:

  • Hard Rock Holdings v. NLRB (FindLaw Cases)
  • Unions: Law & the Workplace (FindLaw)
  • Labor Unions: How to Start a Union (FindLaw’s Law & Daily Life)

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