🗞️ Labor Board Orders Virginia Painting Contractor to Bargain After Missing Its Deadline to Respond

The National Labor Relations Board has ordered Statesville Painting and Maintenance LLC, a contractor based in Danville, Virginia, to recognize and bargain with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), District Council 53, after finding the company committed a wide range of unfair labor practices during a 2023 organizing campaign. The Board reached its findings through a default judgment. The company failed to file a timely answer to a consolidated complaint covering ten separate cases, and the Board rejected its later explanation, citing an owner's medical issues, after evidence showed he remained active in other legal matters during the same period.

With the allegations deemed admitted, the Board found that the company's owner, Vincent Brown Sr., and his son threatened workers with discharge, banned union apparel, suggested that unionizing would be futile, created the impression that union activity was under surveillance, offered improved benefits, and questioned employees about their union activity. Seven employees were found to have been unlawfully discharged or laid off for supporting the union. The union had narrowly lost a representation election, with the tally showing 9 votes against and 7 in favor out of roughly 22 eligible voters and 8 ballots challenged. The Board set that result aside, concluding the surrounding conduct made a fair rerun election unlikely.

Rather than order a new election, the Board applied the standard from NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., the 1969 Supreme Court decision permitting a bargaining order when employer misconduct is too serious for a rerun election to reliably reflect worker sentiment. The choice is notable because it sets aside the broader framework the Board adopted in 2023 in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, which had lowered the threshold for bargaining orders. Earlier this year, the Sixth Circuit declined to enforce the Cemex framework, finding the Board had exceeded its adjudicatory authority. The current Board, chaired by James R. Murphy, a longtime agency official who returned from retirement to lead it this year, relied instead on the traditional Gissel standard in this case.

The Board also ordered backpay, reinstatement, and a notice reading requirement in both English and Spanish, a remedy it reserves for cases involving especially serious or widespread violations. One allegation was not sustained: the Board found that Brown's description of the union as "good for nothing" amounted to lawful opinion rather than an unlawful threat.

Key Points

• The Board deemed the complaint's allegations true after Statesville Painting missed its answer deadline and could not show good cause for the delay.
• Findings included unlawful threats, the creation of a surveillance impression, a union apparel ban, and the discharge or layoff of seven employees for supporting the union.
• The Board issued a bargaining order under the Gissel standard rather than ordering a rerun election, citing the severity and reach of the violations.
• The decision relied on the traditional Gissel standard rather than the Board's 2023 Cemex framework, which a federal appeals court recently declined to enforce.
• Remedies include reinstatement, backpay with interest, expungement of personnel records, and a bilingual notice posting and reading requirement.
• One allegation, that the owner called the union "good for nothing," was dismissed as protected employer opinion.

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

Primary Source: Statesville Painting and Maintenance LLC and International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), District Council 53, 375 NLRB No. 11 (July 27, 2026)

Primary Source Link: www.nlrb.gov/case/10-CA-325878

Supplemental Links Used in Analysis

• NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U.S. 575 (1969)
• Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, NLRB Case 28-CA-230115
• Sixth Circuit declines to enforce NLRB's Cemex bargaining order framework, Ogletree Deakins
• James R. Murphy biography, National Labor Relations Board
• The NLRB in April 2026: Operating Again, but Still in Flux, Butler Snow