Hiring Replacements in Lockouts Is NLRB Top Lawyer’s Next Target

The National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer aims to roll back employers’ ability to hire temporary replacement workers during lockouts, a move that would diminish management leverage during tough contract negotiations with unions.

NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is asking the board to overturn Harter Equipment, a 1986 decision allowing employers to lock out workers and hire temporary replacements, she said Thursday at an American Bar Association conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Abruzzo’s attack on Harter Equipment adds to her broad campaign to retool federal labor law, which includes targeting more than 50 precedents to be struck down, ...