In this era, when more and more employees have supervisory responsibilities, it has come as welcome news that The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that some nurses who assign and direct others to perform tasks should be considered supervisors. As supervisors, those nurses are not entitled to join unions under federal law. The ruling has made a number of union officials furious, but Corporate America has breathed a sigh of relief, for now they can continue to expand the responsibilities of employees, making them more productive, without fear that they might join a union.
The NLRB Board, in a 3-2 decision, found that charge nurses regularly assigned nursing personnel to specific patients for whom they provided care. The board stated that such assignments meant that the nurses had, indeed, demonstrated “significant overall duties” to employees, and so obviously met the statutory definition of “assign” under the National Labor Relations Act.
Because the line between workers and supervisors has been blurring for many years, the NLRB decision is in keeping with a changing workplace. The ruling also goes a long way to erasing the us-versus-them adversarial relationship that has existed between workers and supervisors.
All good laws must take into account a changing reality, and the NLRB decision is particularly timely and relevant. It’s about time that a law that was passed nearly sixty years ago was finally updated!
