A new report released earlier this month by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Initiative shows how the NLRB’s 2011 decision authorizing “micro-unions” has spread across industries. The Specialty Healthcare decision “abandoned decades of precedent regarding what is an ‘appropriate’ bargaining unit for forming a union.” At the time of the decision, the NLRB said the ruling would likely only apply to non-acute healthcare facilities and “did not constitute a broad new legal standard.” However, as this new report shows, these micro-unions are being formed across a variety of industries including retail, manufacturing, rental cars, delivery services, and telecommunications. 
Unions are finding new leverage at the tactical level as well, using everything from app technology to alt-labor organizing to increase their organizing capacity and political punch.
