🗞️ A Federal Labor Judge Orders AV Contractor to Bargain With Union After Finding Retaliation

On April 30, 2026, a federal labor judge found that A-V Services, Inc., a national audiovisual technology contractor, had committed a series of unfair labor practices against workers who sought union representation, issuing a ruling that sets aside the election result and orders the company to the bargaining table.

Administrative Law Judge Lauren Esposito of the National Labor Relations Board determined that A-V Services violated federal labor law with respect to audiovisual technicians at its Jersey City, New Jersey, facilities after those workers moved to organize with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 59. The judge found that the violations affected wages, work assignments, and overtime, and that senior management was directly involved.

The organizing campaign began in the spring of 2023, when a handful of technicians who provided audiovisual support for JP Morgan Chase signed union authorization cards. When Local 59 formally requested recognition on May 30, 2023, the company declined. A representation election was held on July 21, 2023. The initial tally showed three votes for the union, two against, and one challenged ballot. After the challenged ballot of technician Garrett Kruse was resolved pursuant to a 2025 stipulation between the parties, the final count stood at three votes for the union and three against, a tie under which the union had not prevailed.

The judge found that A-V engaged in retaliatory and coercive conduct beginning shortly after management learned of the organizing effort. Site manager Zachary Coddington told the technicians within days of the company receiving the union's recognition letter that they would no longer be assigned to work at other A-V facilities, specifically the Brooklyn location where they had regularly picked up additional hours. Coddington was found to have cited the union campaign directly, warning of no more "cross-pollination" between the sites. The judge credited testimony from current employees Patrick Hunter and Michael Cozine that the change cost them meaningful income, including work at a Brooklyn power-down event in July 2023 they would ordinarily have staffed.

The company also curtailed overtime hours around the time of the election and imposed new documentation requirements on workers seeking to claim unscheduled overtime, changes the judge found were retaliatory. Higher-level managers who had rarely, if ever, visited the Jersey City facility began appearing there regularly once organizing became known. Account executive Michael Hagadorn and New York City area manager John Concepcion, who managed all of A-V's on-site managers in the region from an office in Manhattan, began showing up at the facility as often as daily, with Hagadorn visiting every day during the week of the election. The judge found that this marked increase in managerial presence, combined with supervisors checking in at the start and end of each shift without engaging in substantive work, created the impression of surveillance of union activity in violation of federal law. The judge was careful to note that the allegation was one of creating the impression of surveillance, not of actual surveillance of specific union activities.

The most notable episode came on the morning of the election itself. Hagadorn led technician Michael Cozine into a storage room for a private conversation about career advancement, telling him he controlled promotions and could make things happen, then implied that if the union won, those opportunities would evaporate. Cozine recorded the exchange. Judge Esposito found the timing, an hour or two before polls opened, and the substance of the conversation to constitute an unlawful implied threat of lost promotional opportunity.

A-V also rolled out a market-rate wage increase for technicians at its other locations in late May or early June 2023, but withheld it from the six workers in Jersey City because of the union campaign. The raise did not reach those workers until May 2025, nearly two years after their colleagues elsewhere received it. Because annual pay increases build on a worker's existing base rate, the judge noted that the Jersey City technicians continued to earn less at the time of the hearing than they would have had the increase been applied when it was implemented elsewhere.

One allegation did not survive scrutiny. The judge dismissed the claim that two written disciplinary warnings issued to technician Eddy Saintil were retaliatory, finding that A-V had demonstrated legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the discipline related to tardiness and conduct on the job.

Given the breadth of the violations, all affecting a bargaining unit of just six workers, and the senior management figures behind them, Judge Esposito set aside the election result and granted the General Counsel's request for a Gissel bargaining order, directing A-V to recognize and bargain with Local 59 without holding a new election. Named for a 1969 Supreme Court decision, such orders are reserved for cases where an employer's misconduct has so poisoned the environment that a fair rerun election is considered unlikely to reflect employees' true preferences.

The decision lands amid unsettled law on the subject. In 2023, the NLRB adopted the Cemex framework, which expanded the circumstances under which bargaining orders could follow a tainted election. In March 2026, the Sixth Circuit rejected that framework in Brown-Forman Corp. v. NLRB as an improper exercise of the Board's authority, while in April 2026 the Ninth Circuit upheld it, creating a circuit split that may ultimately require Supreme Court resolution. Judge Esposito applied the traditional Gissel standard rather than the newer Cemex framework, a choice that places her ruling on firmer legal footing regardless of how that broader dispute is resolved.

A-V Services may appeal the decision to the full NLRB Board in Washington before any federal court review.

Key Points

• A-V Services provides audiovisual support for JP Morgan Chase in Jersey City, N.J., employing a bargaining unit of six eligible technicians
• IATSE Local 59 obtained authorization cards from four of those six workers by May 2023; A-V declined voluntary recognition
• Within days of receiving the union's recognition letter, management announced the Jersey City workers would no longer be assigned to other A-V locations, citing the union campaign by name
• A market-rate wage increase implemented at other A-V locations in spring 2023 was withheld from Jersey City workers because of the organizing effort; they received it only in May 2025
• The initial election tally on July 21, 2023 was three votes for the union, two against, and one challenged ballot; after the challenged ballot was resolved in 2025, the final count was three to three, meaning the union had not prevailed
• On the morning of the July 21, 2023 election, account executive Hagadorn met privately with technician Cozine to discuss promotions and then implied those opportunities would disappear if the union won; Cozine recorded the conversation
• The ALJ found that increased managerial presence at the Jersey City facility created the impression of surveillance of union activity; the finding was not one of actual surveillance
• Disciplinary warnings issued to technician Eddy Saintil were found to have legitimate, non-discriminatory bases and were not deemed retaliatory
• The ALJ issued a Gissel bargaining order bypassing a new election, citing the lasting wage impact and pervasive senior-management involvement in the violations
• The decision is an ALJ recommendation subject to appeal before the full NLRB Board

Primary Source Author: Administrative Law Judge Lauren Esposito

Primary Source: A-V Services, Inc. and IATSE Local 59, JD-25-26, Cases 22-CA-332620 & 22-RC-320562 (NLRB Div. of Judges, Apr. 30, 2026)

Primary Source Link: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/22-CA-332620

Supplemental Links

• NLRB Cases & Decisions, Administrative Law Judge Decisions
• NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U.S. 575 (1969), Justia
• NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., Wikipedia overview
• NLRB Cemex Decision Announcement, August 2023
• Sixth Circuit Rejects Cemex in Brown-Forman v. NLRB, March 2026, KMK Law
• Ninth Circuit Upholds Cemex, April 2026, Mondaq
• Wright Line, 251 NLRB 1083 (1980), NLRB Notable Decisions
• IATSE Local 59, IATSE International