The Strike After the Schedule Cut

Question 45: The Strike After the Schedule Cut

Your role

You represent Ironvale Components, an employer facing reinstatement demands after a strike in the fictional Commonwealth of Severn. The company treated the strike as economic and hired permanent replacements. The union says an unlawful unilateral change made it an unfair-practice strike.

Governing law

Assume the following Severn rules apply:

1. An economic strike is one whose objective is to obtain wages, hours, or other bargaining concessions. An unfair-practice strike is one caused or prolonged at least in material part by the employer's unfair labor practice.

2. A strike may have mixed motives. It is an unfair-practice strike when an employer violation materially contributed to the decision to strike or to continuation of the strike, even if economic demands also existed.

3. An employer may hire permanent replacements for economic strikers, but economic strikers remain employees entitled to preferential recall as vacancies arise.

4. Unfair-practice strikers may be temporarily replaced but not permanently displaced. Upon an unconditional offer to return, they are entitled to immediate reinstatement, displacing replacements if necessary.

5. An employer violates the duty to bargain by making a material unilateral change to a mandatory subject while bargaining is ongoing, absent agreement, established past practice, or genuine emergency.

6. Employees who commit serious strike misconduct, including violence, deliberate property destruction, or credible threats, may lose reinstatement rights individually. Peaceful picketing, chanting, and blocking an entrance briefly without violence do not automatically forfeit rights.

7. Back pay for an unlawfully denied reinstatement runs from the unconditional return offer, subject to mitigation.

8. The union bears the initial burden to show material contribution by the unfair practice. Contemporaneous notices, bargaining records, and strike communications are relevant.

9. An employer should not terminate or deny reinstatement to the entire group based on alleged misconduct by identified individuals.

Facts

Ironvale and the union began bargaining for a new agreement on May 1. The union demanded a 6 percent wage increase. Ironvale offered 2 percent. On May 28, employees voted to authorize a strike if no agreement was reached.

On June 3, while bargaining continued, Ironvale eliminated a $1.75 evening-shift differential without union agreement. The company had never previously changed the differential without bargaining, and no emergency existed. Ironvale's bargaining lead wrote internally:

"Cut it now. They need to understand that delay has a cost."

On June 4, the union demanded restoration and called the change unlawful. On June 5, it issued a strike notice stating:

"Employees will strike over Ironvale's inadequate wage proposal and its unlawful unilateral elimination of the evening differential."

Picket signs referred both to "6 percent" and "restore our shift pay." Bargaining notes show that, on June 12, the union offered to end the strike immediately if Ironvale restored the differential and resumed wage bargaining. Ironvale refused.

Ironvale hired 60 replacements on June 10 and designated them permanent. On June 25, the union made an unconditional written offer for every striker to return. Ironvale reinstated only twelve people into vacancies and placed the rest on a preferential-recall list.

Three named strikers are accused of misconduct. Video shows one throwing a bottle that broke a replacement worker's car window. Another made a recorded threat to "break your jaw." A third stood with a group blocking a truck entrance for seven minutes but moved when police instructed the group to clear. The remaining strikers are not tied to misconduct.

The company asks whether the strike was economic, whether replacements may remain, whether back pay is running, and how to handle the three individuals.

Assignment

Analyze:

• The June 3 schedule-pay change under the bargaining rule.
• Whether the strike was economic, unfair-practice, or mixed, and the consequence of mixed motives.
• The significance of the June 5 notice, picket signs, June 12 offer, and internal email.
• Permanent-replacement rights under each classification.
• The effect of the June 25 unconditional return offer.
• Reinstatement and back-pay exposure.
• The three misconduct cases individually.
• The lawful immediate response for the nonmisconduct strikers, replacements, and bargaining process.
• The concrete strategy Ironvale should adopt rather than defending the classification as a label alone.

Q45 key (Strike After Schedule Cut)

1. The June 3 unilateral elimination of the differential is an unfair labor practice: it is a material mandatory subject, no agreement or past practice exists, and the internal email shows deliberate bargaining pressure. Missed: the classification analysis starts from the false premise of lawful conduct.
2. The strike had economic and unfair-practice motives, but mixed motive is enough because the unlawful cut materially contributed and prolonged it. The June 5 notice, signs, June 12 restoration offer, and email establish that causal link. Missed: the earlier wage vote is treated as fixing classification forever.
3. The strikers are therefore unfair-practice strikers and could not be permanently displaced. The June 25 unconditional return offer required immediate reinstatement, displacing replacements if necessary. Missed: a recall list substitutes for the required remedy.
4. Back pay runs from June 25 for unlawfully denied reinstatement, subject to mitigation. Reinstate the nonmisconduct strikers promptly and calculate exposure. Missed: liability continues daily.
5. The bottle throw and credible jaw threat may forfeit those two individuals' rights after fair individual investigation. The seven-minute peaceful blockage cleared on police instruction is not serious misconduct on the supplied rule. Missed: all three are grouped together or the truly serious conduct is ignored.
6. Do not punish the remaining strikers for individual acts. Notify replacements accurately that positions may end, restore the differential, resume bargaining, and seek a global resolution of reinstatement and back pay. Missed: Ironvale compounds the original violation through group retaliation and ongoing refusal.