NLRB orders new union election at Target store, mandates handbook revisions nationwide

The National Labor Relations Board ordered a new union election at the Valley Stream, New York Target store and directed the company to revise employee handbooks nationwide after finding policies discouraged protected organizing activity. The Board concluded certain handbook provisions could be read by employees to bar union solicitation and distribution and ordered remedial steps including notices, inserts, and a cease-and-desist.

The Board’s decision followed an organizing drive by United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1500 in 2011 and an administrative law judge decision issued in May 2012 that the NLRB later affirmed. The Board announced its action on April 26, 2013 and ordered a second election at the Valley Stream location because some prohibited handbook policies “may have affected the organizing effort” taken by the union.

A central piece of evidence was handbook language that said “[c]ertain activities are prohibited at all times on Target premises,” identifying solicitation, distribution, selling and “conducting monetary transactions” as prohibited if done for “personal profit” or “commercial purposes.” The Board found the rule unlawful because employees would reasonably construe it as precluding them from exercising their rights under the NLRA. During the campaign, Target’s materials described Local 1500 as a “business” that “sells memberships,” a characterization the Board considered alongside the handbook language.

Remedies the Board ordered reached beyond the Valley Stream store. The ruling required Target to modify all existing and future employee handbooks throughout the country and to remove wording the NLRB found in violation of federal labor law. The company must post notices that policies have been revised and provide workers with inserts detailing the new policies. UFCW Local 1500 said the Board ordered Target to “cease and desist all illegal activities that voided the first Union election.”

The union framed the ruling as sweeping. The United Food and Commercial Workers International said, “For years, Target has broken the law to suppress its employees’ fundamental right of association. Those days of illegal worker intimidation and suppression are over. The right to stick together at work is a basic American value. … In this case, despite Target’s legal maneuverings to avoid responsibility, the retailer has been held accountable for suppressing the rights of the Long Island workers and for the company’s nationwide policy to silence all their workers. [...] This is not just an isolated instance and Target is not an isolated employer.”

Testimony at the proceeding indicated the handbook originated at corporate and applied broadly; a Target human resources official testified it applied to “hundreds of thousands” of employees. UFCW Local 1500 characterized the decision’s scope as applying to over 1,700 stores and 250,000 employees.

For Target team members, the decision meant potential new elections where prior votes were tainted and clearer limits on rules that could chill organizing. Next steps include the revote at Valley Stream under NLRB supervision and the company’s rollout of revised handbook language and notices to stores nationwide. Journalists and workers will be watching for the specific revised text, the schedule for the vote, and any corporate response.