The Legal Department represents union members in the U.S. courts, before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and public-sector labor boards, and in arbitration.
Our lawyers also provide advice to officers, staff, and local unions on the wide range of issues facing the USW every day.
We help to save jobs, protect benefits and safeguard rights afforded to workers under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Our work levels the playing field for union members, ensuring they never have to fight unfair or illegal treatment alone.
Below is a representative sample of the Legal Department’s work since the 2022 convention.
Our lawyers also provide advice to officers, staff, and local unions on the wide range of issues facing the USW every day.
Providing Support in Labor Disputes
An employer’s decision to lock out its employees during bargaining is a hostile act, one often designed to force workers to accept an insufficient offer.
When an employer locks out its work force in furtherance of unlawful conduct, whether at the bargaining table or in the workplace, workers have a right to be made whole for lost earnings and benefits.
ExxonMobil locked out 650 oil workers at its Beaumont, Texas, refinery on May 1, 2021, and the lockout continued for 10 months. The Legal Department immediately began to examine ExxonMobil’s conduct and found evidence that the company locked out the employees as part of its unlawful attempt to aid a decertification effort.
The Legal Department filed a charge on that theory, and the NLRB regional office agreed with the union and issued a complaint declaring the lockout unlawful.
As a result of this litigation, the NLRB region impounded ballots and withheld results of the decertification election. Once the impoundment ended and the votes were counted, the union learned that it had won the vote and retained its certification as the bargaining representative.
Backing Workers in Collective Bargaining
The Legal Department is called upon every day to advise staff who are in difficult bargaining and to back up that advice with legal action.
Where that difficult bargaining crosses into an employer’s bad-faith bargaining, we file unfair labor practice charges (ULPs) to protect our members’ interests.
Following expiration of an agreement in 2019, for example, Tecnocap committed several ULPs, such as slashing health care benefits in 2021 and then unilaterally implementing its new contract offer in 2022 in the absence of a true impasse.
The Legal Department filed charges asserting that the West Virginia company’s conduct was unlawful and that it bargained in bad faith. NLRB Region 6 found merit to those charges, and we received favorable decisions at the full board.
This legal action, combined with the unwavering solidarity of the membership, resulted in a favorable contract in December 2023 and successfully concluded a four-year fight for just treatment.
Of special note is that the union’s charge concerning the post-expiration change to health care benefits provided the NLRB the occasion to overturn Raytheon Network Centric Systems, a Trump-era board decision that had given employers greater leeway to make changes unilaterally at the end of a contract.
Taking Our Fights to Court
Sometimes, even when we win, the fruits of victory are delayed.
When Verso refused to pay vacation owed to employees after it idled facilities in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., the union processed a grievance through arbitration. The union won the arbitration and secured around $400,000 in vacation payout.
However, instead of complying with the award, Verso filed a suit to vacate it. The Legal Department successfully persuaded the court to enforce the award, and workers began receiving payments in August 2024.
In another case involving the enforcement of arbitration awards, Shell Oil Products terminated a bargaining unit employee at its Anacortes, Wash., facility. The USW grieved the discharge and prevailed at arbitration, with the arbitrator ordering reinstatement of the wrongfully discharged member along with a make-whole remedy.
However, before the arbitration award was issued, Shell sold the facility to a successor employer, Holly Frontier. When neither company agreed to comply with the award—Shell declined to pay anything to the member for her losses and Holly Frontier refused to return her to work—the Legal Department filed suit against both companies in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Washington to confirm and enforce the arbitrator’s decision.
Through this litigation, the parties reached a settlement that satisfied both the union and the member.
Navigating Successorship
Transitions in ownership often raise concerns not only about whether a successor employer will agree to assume its predecessor’s obligations, but whether the successor will recognize and bargain with the union at all. The Legal Department is a resource when members face the unexpected and undesirable in these circumstances.
For example, US Brick in Bessemer, Ala., unlawfully withheld raises for USW brickmakers that were negotiated with the previous owner, Meridian.
The Legal Department filed a ULP charge, presented its case, and persuaded the NLRB region to issue a complaint. The strength of our arguments allowed the union to secure a settlement covering the withheld raises, along with a collective bargaining agreement that placed all employees at the correct rates with future contractual raises.
We engaged in a similar fight after CCX Inc. declared bankruptcy in March 2022, leaving 25 members at the company’s Lower Burrell, Pa., facility with uncertain futures.
When Braeburn Alloy Steel purchased the facility through an auction supervised by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in May 2022, hired all the members and continued operations, the union demanded recognition from the new employer. But Braeburn refused to recognize the union, claiming that language in the bankruptcy court sale order relieved it of its obligations under labor law to bargain with the USW.
The union filed charges with the NLRB, challenging the failure to bargain and also protesting unilateral changes made by Braeburn to the workers’ wages and benefits. NLRB Region 6 issued a complaint in the union’s favor, causing Braeburn to file a motion in the bankruptcy court to restrain the NLRB and the union from pursuing the charges.
The bankruptcy court, in an unprecedented decision in November 2022, issued an order forbidding the union from pursuing unfair labor practice charges challenging the unilateral changes implemented by Braeburn.
The union appealed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, which overturned the order in September 2023. This decision safeguarded the union’s ability to enforce its members’ rights under the NLRA against successor employers who purchase assets in bankruptcy sales.
Safeguarding Public-Sector Workers
The Legal Department stands ready to defend workers’ rights in the public sector.
In April 2024, the union filed charges with the Illinois Labor Relations Board (ILRB) after Sauk Village refused to meet with USW representatives, implemented unilateral changes to terms and conditions of employment, and refused to hear grievances brought by the union.
The ILRB agreed with the union’s view that this conduct ran roughshod over union members’ rights and issued a complaint for hearing, which was expected to take place shortly after the submission of this report.
In another public-sector case in Illinois, the Village of Roxana refused to implement a grievance settlement involving bereavement leave and also retaliated against a union steward for grievance-filing activity.
The administrative law judge determined this conduct to be unlawful and ordered the village to abide by the settlement. It also had to post a notice for 60 days asserting its commitment to respecting the rights of the USW and union members.
Protecting the Right to Organize
In January 2023, Hello Neighbor employees in Pittsburgh sought voluntary recognition for a new bargaining unit.
The CEO of the organization, which supports recently settled immigrant families and refugees, refused to recognize the union. We then filed for an election.
Unfortunately, in the lead-up to the voting, the employer fired four union activists, withheld wage increases for all employees, and then forced a fifth union activist to resign following the election.
The Legal Department filed charges with the NLRB alleging that this conduct served as retaliation for the employees’ protected activity. NLRB Region 6 found merit to those charges, and the parties ultimately reached a settlement that included full back pay for the activists as well as a wage increase for all employees.
Defending Protected Activity
Every day, members across our union engage in conduct for the mutual aid and benefit of USW siblings. And they have the right to do so under the NLRA.
Sometimes, however, these actions encounter the ire of employers. At one of our Cleveland-Cliffs facilities, a bargaining unit employee happened to witness—and record on video—a workplace safety incident. Such recordings can bring light to the root causes of these incidents—indeed, they can serve as indisputable evidence as to what occurred.
After this employee shared the recording with other union members, the employer terminated him. The Legal Department filed charges alleging that his firing was retaliation for his protected activity, and the NLRB region agreed.
Our settlement provided this employee with significant back pay and included an order that the employer rescind certain workplace rules found to restrict employees’ rights.
Not long after unionizing at Safety-Kleen in Illinois, USW members faced an all too common phenomenon: a newly organized employer’s disdain for their rights.
Safety-Kleen changed terms and conditions of employment without bargaining, refused to provide information to which the union was entitled, and even prohibited members from displaying union stickers at work. We filed charges alleging that this conduct violated the NLRA, and the NLRB region agreed.
The Legal Department then negotiated a settlement, which included, in a special turn of events, a provision requiring Safety-Kleen to prominently affix a USW logo on the company’s own sign near the entrance of the facility.
Enforcing Contracts Via Arbitration
When INEOS took over operation of a petrochemical plant in Texas City from BP in 2021, it implemented benefits substantially inferior to those offered by BP. This was in spite of a requirement in the contract’s successorship clause requiring it to provide benefits “reasonably comparable in the aggregate” to BP’s.
The Legal Department arbitrated the resulting grievance, and the arbitrator sustained it, requiring INEOS to provide the “reasonably comparable” benefits. Because this was the first case in the oil sector where the union had to go to arbitration to get an employer to honor successorship language, the arbitrator’s award provides a valuable precedent for other units with the same language.
Ending “Right-to-Work” in Michigan
Following the historic victory in 2023 repealing the “right-to-work” (RTW) law in Michigan, the Legal Department began assisting staff with a variety of issues posed by that transition.
That assistance involved reviewing our private- sector labor agreements in Michigan to identify those containing now-enforceable union security language and drafting letters for staff representatives to send to employees covered by this language to inform them about the implications of the transition. The Legal Department continues to provide advice as issues arise with respect to RTW’s repeal.