🗞️ Brushed Out: A Brooklyn Painting Company, a Union Drive, and a Federal Order to Reinstate Nine Workers

When employees at M.J. Melo Painting Ltd. began organizing in the spring of 2021, management learned of the effort almost immediately. Within roughly two weeks of the first contact with the union, one of the organizing drive's leaders had lost all his work assignments. By summer, eight employees had seen their hours reduced, in some cases by as much as 60 percent, and five had lost their jobs entirely. The pattern, according to federal labor regulators, was not coincidental.

On June 10, 2026, the National Labor Relations Board issued its final decision in M.J. Melo Painting Ltd., 374 NLRB No. 131, affirming that the Brooklyn company had committed multiple violations of the National Labor Relations Act during an organizing campaign by Local Union 1430, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The Board ordered the reinstatement of all nine affected workers and directed the company to make them whole for lost wages, benefits, and any other direct or foreseeable financial harms sustained as a result of the unlawful conduct.

The case centered on Field Supervisor Jose Serrano, whom the Board found had conducted a sustained campaign of coercive statements against workers who supported the union. According to credited employee testimony, Serrano told workers the company maintained a list of union supporters who would no longer receive work, promised better assignments to those who voted against the union, and repeatedly suggested the organizing effort was futile because the company had "very good lawyers." He also told workers their hours would be reduced if they signed union authorization cards, a warning that was subsequently carried out against eight employees.

The Board found that five of those employees, Andres Suarez, Jhonny Cedeno, Diego Alejandro Chica Aguirre, Leonardo Astoquillca, and Percy Martinez, were effectively discharged when the company ceased assigning them work without ever formally notifying them that their employment had ended. Under established Board precedent, a discharge does not require formal words of termination; the relevant question is whether a reasonable employee would have understood the employer's conduct as ending the employment relationship.

Four other workers, Antonio Hanco, Joel Nunez Jimenez, Jorge Arnwivis Yundes Arcila, and Jorge Yundes Londono, were found to have been constructively discharged. Under the Board's two-part test, first articulated in Crystal Princeton Refining Co., 222 NLRB 1068 (1976), a constructive discharge requires showing that the employer imposed working conditions so difficult or unpleasant as to compel a resignation, and that those conditions were driven by the employee's union activity. The hour reductions those four workers experienced ranged from roughly 22 to 60 percent of their prior schedules, were of indefinite duration, and in several cases left employees unable to meet rent and other basic expenses. The Board concluded the company reasonably should have foreseen that reductions of that magnitude would force the workers to seek employment elsewhere.

The company's position, that a decline in available work explained the hour reductions, was rejected. The Board, affirming the findings of Administrative Law Judge Jeffrey P. Gardner, noted that the company had simultaneously hired new employees and assigned them substantial hours while telling union supporters there was insufficient work. Serrano's own statements further undermined the defense; he had told multiple workers that their hours were being reduced because of the union and would return once the organizing effort concluded.

The Board applied the Wright Line burden-shifting framework, the NLRB's standard causation test in cases where an employer may have had mixed motives for an adverse employment action. The General Counsel established unlawful motivation through employee testimony, the timing of the adverse actions relative to the union campaign, and Serrano's own on-the-record statements. The burden then shifted to the company to demonstrate it would have taken the same actions regardless of union activity, a showing the Board found it failed to make.

Separately, the Board addressed a nearly five-year-old dispute over the results of the original 2021 mail-ballot election, in which four challenged ballots had left the outcome unresolved. The company argued that a non-Board settlement agreement between itself and the union rendered the ballot challenges moot. The Board declined to consider that agreement, which had never been entered into the formal evidentiary record, and directed the Regional Director to open and count all four challenged ballots.

The remedies ordered reflect the expanded make-whole standard the Board adopted in Thryv, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 22 (2022), which extended compensation beyond lost wages to include direct and foreseeable pecuniary harms such as job-search costs. The Board noted that Chairman Murphy and Member Mayer expressed openness to reconsidering the Thryv framework in a future proceeding but agreed to apply it here in the absence of a majority to overturn the precedent. The company was also ordered to post bilingual notices in English and Spanish and to mail copies to all current and former employees going back to June 7, 2021, a mailing remedy the Board found warranted because the company's workers report directly to job sites and do not regularly visit the company's office.

Key Points

• M.J. Melo Painting Ltd., a Brooklyn residential and commercial painting company, was found to have violated the National Labor Relations Act during a 2021 organizing drive by employees seeking representation through IBEW Local 1430.
• Field Supervisor Jose Serrano conducted a campaign of threats, interrogations, promises of benefits, and statements creating the impression of surveillance, all of which the Board found unlawful under Section 8(a)(1).
• Five employees were found to have been unlawfully discharged when the company ceased assigning them work without formal notice; four others were found to have been constructively discharged after hour reductions ranging from approximately 22 to 60 percent left them unable to sustain their livelihoods.
• The company's business-necessity defense was rejected as pretextual, in part because it was simultaneously hiring new workers while reducing hours for union supporters.
• The Board ordered reinstatement of all nine employees, backpay, compensation for direct and foreseeable financial harms beyond lost wages, and bilingual notice posting and mailing to all employees going back to June 2021.
• Four challenged ballots from the original 2021 election were ordered opened and counted; the Board declined to consider a non-Board settlement agreement the company argued made the ballot dispute moot, because the agreement was not part of the evidentiary record.
• The decision applies the Thryv expanded remedy framework; two of the three Board members signaled openness to revisiting that precedent in a future case.

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

Primary Source: M.J. Melo Painting Ltd., 374 NLRB No. 131 (June 10, 2026)

Primary Source Link: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/29-CA-278541

Supplemental References

• NLRB: Discriminating Against Employees Because of Their Union Activities (Section 8(a)(3))
• NLRB: Interfering with Employee Rights (Section 7 and 8(a)(1))
• Duane Morris: NLRB Decision Clarifies Wright Line Burden in Mixed-Motive Cases
• NLRB Edge: June 12, 2026 Decision Roundup (includes Melo Painting analysis)
• NLRB Region 29 Brooklyn Regional Office