An earlier NLRB regional office finding in favor of the employee who originally filed the suit was overturned by an administrative law judge in February, 1998. The decision of the NLRB upholds the judge.

At the Crown Cork & Seal plant, employees on teams made decisions about production, safety and other workplace issues. The NLRB ruled that the employee teams could not be classified as labor organizations since they had 'supervisory' authority to plan and implement their decisions.

Those of you who have worked with teams and employee committees in a non-union setting will remember the series of cases argued before the NLRB in the early 1990s. Generally, the companies, such as Electromation, were making efforts to implement employee involvement as they had seen it successfully operating in Japanese companies. The recurring NLRB decision in these cases, that the employee teams were, in fact, operating as management supported labor unions, put a serious damper on team and employee involvement.

If you work with employee teams or committees in a non-union represented setting, you will want to read and clearly understand the areas in which to exercise care. These include committees acting or purporting to act as a representative of employees and employee teams that are dominated by management members. I have also been somewhat wary of teams that present formal proposals or ideas to management and management responds to those proposals or ideas, as opposed to less structured communication of information or ideas. It appears to be within the law to have employees on teams, but they should not be representing other employees. I have also generally steered clear of allowing groups of employees to make decisions or recommendations about any factors that affect working conditions or employment conditions, issues that would generally be negotiated by a union. I have always encouraged workplace decision making by truly empowered, intact teams for whom managers provide consultation and assistance. The following white paper makes the potential violations much broader and more clear.

This link will take you to a page that summarizes how I have generally advised clients to interpret the findings over the years. This article was prepared by Thomas C. Garwood, Jr., Ford & Harrison LLP, attorneys specializing in employment and labor law and general counsel to the Employers Association of Florida. Craig Weller, Vice President, Human Resources for Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control, also contributed to this article.

According to an article, NLRB Rules Crown Cork & Seal Panel of Employees, Managers Is Within Law by Kathy Chen in the July 26, 2001 Wall Street Journal, "Industry executives hailed the ruling, and predicted it would open the door to more companies using employees in major workplace decisions...Labor officials were cautiously optimistic, too. Nancy Schiffer, associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO, said the case underscored labor's position that labor-management cooperation can work, as long as employers really empower employees."

Most recently, Congress sought to pass the Teamwork for Managers and Employees Act of 1995 (Team Act). It was vetoed by President William Clinton who said, "This legislation, rather than promoting genuine teamwork, would undermine the system of collective bargaining that has served this country so well for so many decades ... rather than encouraging true workplace cooperation this bill would abolish protections that ensure independent and democratic representation in the workplace." So, non-union employers who look for clear direction about the legality and scope of their ability to use work teams to involve, empower and enable employees to contribute, have waited. Until now.

Bottom line? A surface reading of the new NLRB decision indicates that if employee teams are truly empowered to implement their decisions about productivity, quality, performance improvement, safety, and work place organization, they are legal in the United States.