5th Circuit Tells NLRB To Slow Down, General Strike Update : LRI INK

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Subject: 5th Circuit Tells NLRB To Slow Down, General Strike Update : LRI INK

November 6, 2025

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The General Strike Question: Union Coordination or Grassroots Fantasy?

by Kimberly Ricci

It’s been a minute since we talked about whether a general strike could be coming for the U.S. anytime soon. Back in February, the answer was “No, and yes” because the possibility wasn’t worth losing sleep over. After all, a general strike hasn’t happened in the U.S. since 1946 in Oakland, CA. That strike occurred due to mounting economic dissatisfactions, including inflation in the post-World War II environment.

Similar frustrations, including discontent over the government shutdown, are arguably also present in 2025, and some believe that this could lead to a cross-industry strike if workers see no other option for meaningful change. In October, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called for workers to join the proposed May Day 2028 strike that UAW President Shawn Fain has been forecasting, so let’s check in on where that momentum sits.

A Union-Coordinated Mass Strike Over Contract Renewals

First, a reality check. Private sector union density sat abysmally low at 5.9% in 2024. For public and private sectors combined, that number was about 10%. So, a so-called “general strike” as carried out by unions would mainly affect specific employers and those further down the supply chain.

That doesn’t mean that Fain won’t try to spread a mass strike throughout several sectors. In fact, he’s been telegraphing his intent for a general walkout since late 2023. He called for other unions to align contract end dates with that of the Big Three automakers, and he warned that a general strike will take “mass coordination” with planning well in advance.

Granted, Fain is also using this threat as a future Big Three bargaining chip, but he is influential in labor circles, who are following his lead. His “Stand Up Strike” was copied by the UFCW against grocery chains, and multiple unions--including the American Federation of Teachers, United Electrical Workers, and the Association of Flight Attendants–CWA--have aligned their contract end dates for Spring 2028, too.

If enough unions manage to coordinate contract negotiations, a general strike might be feasible and protected by the NLRA.

What About a Grassroots Effort?

Outside of specific union contracts, politically-motivated broad strikes tend to happen in Europe–on October 3 in Italy, at least 2 million people took part in a general strike over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict–but in the U.S., grassroots activism is far less structured.

A website called GeneralStrikeUS.com has gathered strike card "signatures" all year but has only reached about 400,000 out of their stated 10,602,352 goal. That's less than 4%, and the site doesn’t have a formal union affiliation but is supposedly tied to the Democracy At Work non-profit. Various other websites, some of which appear insecure and potentially unsafe to link here, have likewise claimed to be spreading the word.

At present, it’s enough to stay aware and remember that while the NLRA protects certain strike activities, there’s less of a guarantee that a general strike against government policies would receive protection. That’s one more reason a general strike that’s not tied to contract disputes is less probable to happen, although not out of the question.

Conclusion

A general strike does not appear likely in 2025, but the portrait painted by Fain could come to reality in 2028. The single best way for businesses to guard against being included is by building what we call extraordinary workplaces, which thrive through transparent communication and positive cultures.

If workers feel valued and engaged, they are less apt to become involved with third-party intervention or drastic measures like a cross-industry walkout. Rather than viewing this issue through the lens of fear, however, the possibility of a general strike can be viewed by employers as an opportunity to build a resilient workforce with no room for union infiltration.

Blog Post

Fifth Circuit to NLRB: Not So Fast

by Michael VanDervort

The Fifth Circuit just told the NLRB to stay in its lane.

Hiran Management bought Hungry Like the Wolf, a small Houston karaoke bar, in 2022. After hiring a new manager, employees complained about extra duties and broken pay promises.

When the manager called a staff meeting to address the tension, seven workers walked out, regrouped, and went on strike. Management later fired them.

The NLRB ruled the firings unlawful under Section 8(a)(1) and ordered reinstatement, back pay, and, under its 2022 Thryv decision, compensation for “any other direct or foreseeable pecuniary harms.”

Hiran appealed. The Fifth Circuit sided with the company, finding that the Board’s expanded remedy went beyond what the NLRA allows.

In Hiran Management v. NLRB (Oct. 31, 2025), the court ruled that the agency overstepped its bounds when it ordered an employer to cover the “downstream” costs of an unfair labor practice, including late fees, lost childcare, and relocation costs. Those expanded make-whole remedies originated from the Board’s 2022 Thryv, Inc. decision, which redefined “make whole” to encompass any direct or foreseeable economic harm resulting from an unlawful discharge or retaliation.

The Board stated that it was simply restoring workers to the position they would have held “but for” the violation. The Fifth Circuit didn’t see it that way. Writing for the panel, Judge Edith Jones called the Thryv approach “legal damages, not equitable relief,” and said Section 10(c) of the NLRA doesn’t authorize that kind of remedy. In other words, reinstatement and back pay are fine. Compensating for every knock-on financial consequence is not.

That ruling wipes out the Board’s Thryv remedy in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, at least for now. It also deepens a circuit split that’s been brewing for a year. The Third Circuit reached the same conclusion in NLRB v. Starbucks Corp. (Dec. 27, 2024), rejecting the idea that “foreseeable pecuniary harms” fall within the Board’s equitable powers. But the Ninth Circuit went the opposite direction in Macy’s Inc. v. NLRB (Jan. 21, 2025), fully endorsing the expanded relief and denying the company’s petition for rehearing en banc earlier this month.

That leaves three appellate courts — one West Coast, one East Coast, one South- in open disagreement about what “make whole” really means under the NLRA. And it’s not just academic.

For employers, this split means the size of a potential NLRB remedy may depend on where they do business. In the Fifth Circuit, exposure stops at traditional back pay. In the Ninth, a company could be ordered to cover extra costs, anything from interest on late rent to lost healthcare coverage. The same unfair labor practice could carry vastly different financial consequences depending on the ZIP code.

For the Board, this decision lands hard. The Biden-era NLRB made expanded remedies a central part of its enforcement strategy, arguing that meaningful deterrence required more than a paycheck. With Congress unwilling to authorize civil penalties, Thryv was meant to fill that gap. The Fifth Circuit just ripped that plan in half.

The practical effect is a stalled policy and a straight shot to the Supreme Court. Macy’s now has a clear path to file a petition for review, and the Fifth Circuit’s opinion makes it almost inevitable that the Court will have to decide whether “make whole” means equitable relief or something more ambitious.

Until then, the rules depend on geography. And that’s a problem for everyone trying to navigate compliance, bargaining, and litigation risk in a supposedly uniform federal labor law system.

Blog Post

Next 52 Weeks: Third Party Intervention, Vulnerability, and Union Free Strategy

by Michael VanDervort

In this episode of the Left of Boom Show, host Phil Wilson and guest expert Evelyn Fragoso discuss the critical aspects of vulnerability assessment in the workplace. They explore the importance of being proactive rather than reactive, the common pitfalls companies face in assessing vulnerability, and the significance of face-to-face communication.

The conversation highlights the need for creating safe spaces for employee feedback, the importance of highlighting positive changes, and the distinction between internal and external vulnerabilities. They also examine the behavioral indicators of effective leadership and the importance of communication tools for supervisors in creating a supportive work environment.

Takeaways

Vulnerability assessment should focus on proactive measures.
Emotional aspects are often overlooked in assessments.
Surveys can provide outdated information if not timely. • Face-to-face communication enhances employee engagement.
Roundtables can create safe spaces for open dialogue. • Highlighting positive changes is crucial for employee morale.
Internal vulnerabilities can stem from poor leadership practices. • High turnover rates signal potential leadership issues.
Effective communication tools are essential for supervisors.
Awareness of external industry trends is vital for companies.

Chapters

00:00 Understanding Vulnerability Assessment

02:50 Common Pitfalls in Assessing Vulnerability

05:43 The Importance of Face-to-Face Communication

08:51 Identifying Hotspots in Employee Engagement

11:46 Creating Safe Spaces for Employee Feedback

14:56 Highlighting Positive Changes

17:50 Internal vs. External Vulnerability

20:39 Behavioral Indicators of Leadership Effectiveness

23:43 The Role of Communication in Leadership

26:43 External Vulnerability and Industry Awareness

29:47 Steps to Reduce Vulnerability in the Workplace

Listen to Podcast

Friday Five: Teamsters Tangles, AI Attacks, And Elder Care Alarms

by Kimberly Ricci

It’s Friday, and we have five labor-related stories that you might not have heard yet:

🚚📦 The Teamsters’ heavy-handed UPS mess keeps going

We’ve been watching how the Teamsters’ 2023 contract battle with UPS increased the logistics company’s labor costs to such a degree that layoffs were sadly predictable. And of course, Sean O’Brien has not only been pointing the finger at UPS for the layoffs but has also concocted fiction about the related driver buyout plan.

To update the situation: UPS has reportedly laid off 48,000 workers over the past year, and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board hopped aboard the subject back while calling out the “Bad Teamsters Bargain With UPS.” That editorial leads with a grumpy-looking photo of O’Brien, who penned his own fiery editorial the last time the Wall Street Journal called him out over the Teamsters credit card.

Naturally, O’Brien has once again retorted with his own op-ed to what he calls “a favorite Journal pastime: attacking me by name” while denying that his heavy-handed tactics have anything to do with layoffs.

🧠🤖 Watch where you click with AI

This isn’t exactly employment-related news, but those who are using AI for work will want to take note. As it turns out, the soaring popularity of AI is also making LLMs an increasingly popular destination for hackers to launch “increasingly sophisticated attacks."

The Hacker News detailed how ChatGPT’s new Atlas browser is vulnerable to prompt injection attacks, which can effectively jailbreak the browser while embedding a malicious URL within a web address. In the process, such an attacker uses ChatGPT’s own built-in tools against a user while directing them toward phishing pages.

Equally scary: This attack mechanism can also tap into unsuspecting users’ Google Drives if they’re connected to ChatGPT.

However, these attacks aren’t exclusive to ChatGPT. Perplexity Comet and Opera Neon have also been wrestling with prompt injection attacks, so be careful out there.

💊🚑 Elder care’s grim outlook is only projected to worsen

Earlier this year, we warned that Trump’s executive orders could exacerbate labor shortages in healthcare while also fueling union activity. We also predicted that this could hit elder care particularly hard, given that CNAs provide most of the care for patients in at-home settings. To make matters more difficult, CNAs are chronically in short supply and tend to be first-generation immigrants.

This week, an Axios investigative report revealed that in-home elder care's costs rose in 2025 by 10%, or three times the rate of the overall Consumer Price Index. And yes, organizing is heavily afoot for these workers. In early October, home health care workers in Michigan voted to unionize by the thousands with SEIU, and we can expect that trend to accelerate further.

📢🪧 Union organizing’s strange spot amid the shutdown

Union petition filings are currently suspended, but Big Labor continues its attempt to break new ground. A few examples from this week:

✔️ At the Sundance Institute, workers announced intent to join CWA, and the non-profit’s management chose to voluntarily recognize the union within hours of the request.

✔️ At the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, workers are organizing with AFSCME following union contract ratifications at nearby Philly cultural institutions, including Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia Art Museum, and Penn Museum.

✔️ Near Sacramento, CA, workers at Elk Grove’s Sky River Casino have been pushing to unionize with UNITE HERE since 2023. A complicated issue related to a 2017 agreement has delayed a determination on whether an election must be held at the casino that opened in 2022. From here, a court will interpret the agreement in light of various other complications on labor law within the context of tribal sovereignty. Sounds complicated!

🔌🚗 Shawn Fain’s tariff love is backfiring

UAW chief Shawn Fain memorably opposed Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential race, which made it all the more surprising when Fain embraced the role of tariff cheerleader. Now, those tariffs are a key reason why vehicle sales have slowed, which isn’t good news for auto workers.

Amid a sea of Fortune 500 layoff news this week, GM announced that they are cutting thousands of jobs in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan. The automaker explained that these layoffs are happening due to both tariffs and a slower-than-expected EV adoption, which is also partially down to Trump nixing the $7,500 EV tax credit, so we’ll see if Fain’s newfound support of the current president will bite him back.

This week, Fain has been distracted while trumpeting how UAW members authorized a strike at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant.

Fain held a Town Hall meeting on Facebook Live Wednesday, November 5, at 6:00 p.m. ET. He’ll be discussing plans to fix broken trade deals, the contract situation at Volkswagen, the state of the Big Three, and more.

Blog Post

Stories You May Have Missed:

AFL-CIO’s Shuler: Union contracts protect workers from AI threat

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Teamsters union to press UPS over Roadie use of gig drivers

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More Philly cultural workers join wave of union organizing

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How White-Collar Workers Could Fuel a New Populist Movement

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UAW says strike authorization at Volkswagen Chattanooga passes

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About Labor Relations INK

Labor Relations INK is published weekly and is edited by LRI Consulting Services, Inc. Feel free to pass this newsletter on to anyone you think might enjoy it. New subscribers can sign up by visiting here.

If you use content from this newsletter, please attribute it to LRI Consulting Services, Inc. and include our website: http://www.LRIonline.com

Contributing editors for this issue: Greg Kittinger, Michael VanDervort, and Kimberly Ricci.

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About LRI Consulting Services, Inc.

LRI Consulting Services, Inc. exists to help our clients thrive and become extraordinary workplaces. We improve the lives of working people by strengthening relationships with their leaders and each other. For over 40 years, LRI Consulting Services, Inc. has led the labor and employee relations industry, driven by our core values and our proven process, the LRI Way.

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Subject: 5th Circuit Tells NLRB To Slow Down, General Strike Update : LRI INK