For labor-law fanatics only

This is a particularly complex labor law case involving the National Labor Relations Board and an electric company from upstate New York. The Court of Appeals rules against the company's efforts to avoid an agreement with a labor union, and the termination of an employee who is now entitled to damages.

The case is NLRB v. Newark Electric Corp., issued in September 17, more than a year following oral argument. Newark Electric was an electrical contractor owned by Richard Colacino, who turned the business over to his son, James, who formed a new corporation, Colacino Industries. James eventually formed a third company, Newark Electric 2.0. The union and James then entered into two Letters of Agreement, which would bring the companies into a multi-employer collective bargaining agreement. The first LOA involved the union and Newark Electric. The second involved Colacino Industries and the union. Later on, pursuant to the terms of the LOA, James cancelled the LOA with Newark Electric 2.0. A few days later, James told the union that this cancellation also applied to the LOA with Colacino Industries. 

The Court of Appeals hold that the first cancellation does not mean the second LOA is also cancelled. While the companies are single-employers and one is an alter-ego of the other (as they have common ownership, etc., the LOA did not supersede or merge with the first LOA. (Under normally circumstances a first contract merges with the second contract between the parties). The employer's legal arguments on this point have a superficial appeal to them, the Court of Appeals says, since the entities are a single employer/alter ego. But adopting that argument is a bad idea. The Court reasons:

it would be misguided to apply the merger doctrine to two contracts signed by facially distinct parties, relieving one of its voluntarily undertaken obligations, premised on an administrative agency’s post hoc application of a doctrine intended to further Congressionally endorsed aims to the contrary.