Sixth Circuit Points Out Limits of NLRB Adjudicatory Rulemaking
At a Glance For nearly 50 years, the Supreme Court’s decision in NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co . governed when the Board could issue a bargaining order despite a union’s election loss. In 2023, the Board departed from Gissel in Cemex by making bargaining orders the default remedy when employer unfair labor practices require setting aside an election. As the first federal court of appeals to review a Cemex bargaining order, the Sixth Circuit denied enforcement 2-1 on the ground that Cemex was an improper exercise of the Board’s adjudicatory authority. In Brown-Forman v. NLRB , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit became the first federal circuit court to review the National Labor Relations Board’s recent Cemex decision. The court found the Board engaged in improper rulemaking when it altered decades of precedent by mandating a bargaining order whenever the employer commits unfair labor practices (ULPs) that re...