In Sprain Brook Manor Nursing Home, Ltd., Board Case No. 02-CA-040231 (reported at 361 NLRB No. 54) (2d Cir. decided, November 18, 2015), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that substantial evidence supported the Board’s findings and enforced the Board’s order in full.

Specifically, the  Board concluded that Sprain Brook Manor told a Union member that she would have “trouble” if she left the room during her discharge meeting to find a Union representative, finding it “objectively reasonable for [the Union member] to have believed that the threatened consequences were serious and negative and thus sufficiently coercive to violate Section 8(a)(1).”

Next, the Second Circuit upheld the Board’s finding that the Union member’s discharge was retaliatory and motivated by Union hostility in violation of Sections 8(a)(3) and 8(a)(1). In this regard, the  Board found that Sprain Brook Manor terminated the Union member on account of her prior participation in highly visible union activities such as picketing and collective bargaining negotiations.

Finally, the Second Circuit upheld the Board’s determination that Sprain Brook Manor committed four violations of Section 8(a)(5) of the Act by unilaterally rescinding or altering employee benefits. Specifically, it found that Sprain Brook Manor eliminated free lunches, on-site check cashing, free physical examinations and tuberculosis tests required for continued employment, and a monthly payment to employees who declined health insurance, without first bargaining with the Union.