This week’s U.S. National Labor Relations Board decision in Miller & Anderson will likely have little to no impact on the use of staffing services or on staffing firm relations with clients, according to Stephen Dwyer, general counsel of the American Staffing Association. “Although we cannot definitively predict the long-term impact of the decision,” he said, “prior NLRB decisions that effectively made it easier for temporary workers to unionize did not demonstrably result in increased unionization of such workers, and that largely remains the case today.”

Private sector union membership accounts for less than 7% of the workforce, and temporary help services workers make up 2% of the nonfarm workforce, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Relatively few temporary workers are assigned to clients with union workforces,” Dwyer said.

The decision departed from years of legal precedent to allow temporary employees to join a client’s existing bargaining unit without consent of the staffing firm and its client, Dwyer said. “While the American Staffing Association supports the rights of workers to unionize under the law,” he emphasized, “ASA argued in an amicus brief filed in the case that consent of both parties was required under the National Labor Relations Act.”

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About the American Staffing Association

The American Staffing Association is the voice of the U.S. staffing, recruiting, and workforce solutions industry. ASA and its state affiliates advance the interests of the industry across all sectors through advocacy, research, education, and the promotion of high standards of legal, ethical, and professional practices. For more information about ASA, visit americanstaffing.net.