Understanding the NLRA

In contrast to most other laws that apply to all employees regardless of organizational position, the NLRA’s protections do not apply to supervisors and managers. Under the NLRA, supervisors are individuals who have the authority, in the interest of the employer, to make personnel, to responsibly direct other employees, to settle their grievances, or to effectively recommend such actions. This definition of supervisor is intended to distinguish positions that are genuinely part of management from employees who operate like team leaders and from professionals in general.
Managerial employees, who formulate and effectuate management policies by expressing and making operative the decisions of their employer, are also excluded from coverage. It was no doubt news to many professors at Yeshiva University, a private college, when the Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that they were managers. The Court reasoned that the faculty’s role in making decisions about such basic matters as determining curriculum, hiring faculty, and granting tenure was managerial authority exercised in the employer’s interest.
Of course, much has changed on the higher education scene since 1980. Full-time, tenured faculty members of the sort that the Supreme Court had in mind have become increasingly rare. The cadre of part-time, “adjunct” faculty-who are clearly not “managers”-has grown substantially, and they have obtained union representation at a number of schools. Additionally, state public employee collective bargaining statutes have generally been interpreted as covering faculty members. If you are a student at a public university, the faculty members at your school might be unionized.
There is one significant exception to the general rule that supervisors and managers fall outside of the NLRA’s protections. In one case, a manufacturing supervisor claimed that he was terminated in retaliation for his refusal to help the company “build a case” that it could use to fire two employees who were attempting to organize a union. The court made it clear that a supervisor or manager who is disciplined for refusing to commit unfair labor practices is protected by the NLRA.