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🗞️ Board Orders California Surgery Center to Bargain, Rejects Constitutional Challenge

The NLRB ordered ESCNC, LLC to recognize and bargain with Teamsters Local 150 after finding the company's refusal unlawful, rejecting due process and constitutional defenses while sparing it from turning over employee Social Security numbers.

onthelaborfront

onthelaborfront

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🗞️ Board Orders California Surgery Center to Bargain, Rejects Constitutional Challenge

The National Labor Relations Board has ordered ESCNC, LLC, doing business as Surgery Center of Northern California, to recognize and bargain with Teamsters Local No. 150, in a dispute that began after employees at the Roseville, California facility voted to unionize in December 2024.

The case followed a familiar pattern in labor law known as a "test of certification." Because companies cannot directly appeal an NLRB certification of a union in federal court, they must instead refuse to bargain, prompting an unfair labor practice charge, so that the resulting Board order can be challenged before a federal appeals court. ESCNC took that route, admitting it refused to bargain and withheld requested employee records while arguing the underlying union election was flawed and that the Board's structure itself was unconstitutional.

In a July 21 decision, the three member Board, comprising Chairman James Murphy and Members David Prouty and Scott Mayer, granted summary judgment to the General Counsel. The panel found that ESCNC's objections to the election, including claims about due process and the supervisory status of certain employees under Section 2(11) of the National Labor Relations Act, had already been litigated and rejected in the earlier representation case and could not be revisited. The Board likewise dismissed a series of constitutional arguments, including claims tied to the Seventh Amendment and separation of powers, citing established precedent including NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. and Withrow v. Larkin.

The Board did grant the company partial relief on one narrow issue. Citing precedent holding that Social Security numbers are not presumptively relevant to collective bargaining, the panel declined to order their disclosure and sent that single item back to the regional office for further review. All other requested information, including personnel policies, wage data, job descriptions and disciplinary records, must be furnished to the union.

The ruling arrives against the backdrop of a separate, closely watched February 2026 decision in Longmont United Hospital, in which the Board declined to expand monetary remedies for employers who lose test of certification cases, preserving a decades old framework that limits penalties to bargaining orders and notice postings rather than back pay for delayed negotiations.

Key Points

  • The NLRB certified Teamsters Local 150 in December 2024 after a 22 to 2 employee vote at the Roseville surgical facility.
  • ESCNC admitted refusing to bargain and refusing to provide records, a standard tactic used to obtain federal court review of a certification.
  • The Board rejected the company's due process, supervisory status, and constitutional defenses as either already litigated or unsupported.
  • ESCNC must furnish nearly all requested employee and workplace records, but the request for Social Security numbers was remanded for further proceedings.
  • The company must bargain in good faith, post employee notices within 14 days, and certify compliance within 21 days of the order.

Primary Source Author: National Labor Relations Board (Chairman James R. Murphy, Members David M. Prouty and Scott A. Mayer)

Primary Source: ESCNC, LLC d/b/a Surgery Center of Northern California and Teamsters Local No. 150, 375 NLRB No. 1, Case 20 CA 358895 (July 21, 2026)

Primary Source Link: www.nlrb.gov/case/20-CA-358895

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