🗞️ Drawn at the State Line: NLRB Narrows the Battlefield in Colorado Traffic Control Union Vote

A federal labor official has ruled that 107 traffic control workers employed by Traffic Management, LLC in Colorado will vote on union representation this month, but only after rejecting the broader unit the union had sought. The decision, issued May 5, 2026, by Matthew S. Lomax, Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board's Region 27, draws a careful line between what labor law permits and what contract history alone can establish.

Laborers International Union of North America, Local 720 had sought to represent all of the company's Colorado employees under a unit defined by state boundaries, a description it argued was consistent with the union's existing pre-hire agreement, or so-called Section 8(f) agreement, with the employer. Traffic Management pushed back, arguing the unit should instead be tied to its two physical branches: one in Denver and one in Greeley, roughly 60 miles apart. The Regional Director sided with the employer on that narrow but consequential question.

The distinction carries implications beyond this case. Under Section 8(f) of the National Labor Relations Act, construction industry employers and unions may enter into pre-hire agreements without a prior election or demonstrated majority support. When a union later seeks formal certified status under Section 9(a), which carries an ongoing duty to bargain, the Board must independently determine what constitutes an appropriate bargaining unit, regardless of how the pre-hire agreement was framed. That prior agreement, Lomax found, "establishes one thing definitively: the Employer agreed that the Petitioner would represent its employees in performing traffic control work" and nothing more.

The union's 8(f) agreement incorporated three statewide Master Labor Agreements, each limited by their terms to Colorado and matching Local 720's own jurisdictional boundaries. The Board has long held, however, that a union's geographic jurisdiction is not a controlling factor in unit determination. Applying that precedent, Lomax found that extending the unit to cover the entire state, including 31 of Colorado's 64 counties where the employer had performed no documented work, risked granting the union representative status over employees not yet hired and thus unable to express a preference.

"A statewide unit description does not have sufficient support in the employees' work locations, the parties' bargaining history, or the parties' current 8(f) unit," Lomax wrote.

The employer's proposed alternative, a unit defined as employees dispatched from or out of the Denver and Greeley branches, was found appropriate. Virtually all 107 employees begin and end their shifts at one of the two branches, receive daily job assignments through a proprietary mobile application tied to those branches, and return equipment and complete paperwork there at the close of each shift. The approximately 7 percent of jobs performed outside a 30-mile radius of either branch were still dispatched from one of the two Colorado locations. A small number of employees with standing permission to report directly to job sites, rather than to a branch first, did not alter the analysis.

On the question of whether the two branches should vote as a single unit or separately, Lomax found a multifacility structure appropriate. Workers at identical classification levels across both branches share the same skills, duties, and working conditions. Management and supervision are fully centralized: Branch Manager Michael Morales oversees both locations, and his three-person operations team is not divided between them. The two branches have been treated as a single unit throughout the parties' bargaining history, and no evidence was presented that employees sought branch-by-branch representation.

The election is scheduled for May 14 at the Greeley facility and May 15 at the Denver facility, with polls opening in the early morning and again in the late afternoon to accommodate employees' dispatch schedules. Eligible voters are those on the payroll as of the period ending May 3, 2026. The employer was required to provide a complete voter list to all parties by May 7, 2026.

Key Points

• The NLRB rejected a statewide bargaining unit for 107 Colorado traffic control workers, finding it too broad given the employer's documented operational footprint.
• A unit tied to the company's Denver and Greeley branches was approved as appropriate, covering all current employees without any change to headcount.
• The ruling reaffirms that an existing Section 8(f) pre-hire agreement does not automatically define the scope of an appropriate unit in a Section 9(a) election proceeding.
• The employer's concern that a statewide description would absorb future branch employees, denying them an independent vote on representation, was cited as a meaningful policy reason to limit the unit's geographic reach.
• A multifacility election was ordered, with voting scheduled for May 14 at Greeley and May 15 at Denver, 2026.
• Either party may request review of the decision by the full NLRB Board; filing such a request does not automatically stay the election.

Primary Source Author: Matthew S. Lomax, Regional Director, NLRB Region 27

Primary Source: Decision and Direction of Election, Traffic Management, LLC and Laborers International Union of North America, Local 720, Case 27-RC-381622 (May 5, 2026)

Primary Source Link: NLRB Case 27-RC-381622

Supplemental References

• NLRB: What's the Law on Employer Rights and Obligations
• Littler Mendelson: 8(f) v. 9(a) Relationships in the Construction Industry
• Jackson Lewis: NLRB Construction Rule Change and Section 9(a) Recognition
• Jackson Lewis: How the Fair Choice Rule Is Shaping the Construction Industry
• NLRB: Recent Election Results
• Laborers International Union of North America, Local 720