## Facts

- Walmart employees formed OUR Walmart, an employee organization advocating for improved wages, hours, and working conditions.
- Over roughly October 2012 to November 2013, OUR Walmart and allies organized multiple work stoppages and protests, including a strategy of striking, returning to work, and striking again.
- In late May/early June 2013, OUR Walmart organized the “Ride for Respect” action tied to Walmart’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas.
- Approximately 100–130 employees left scheduled work to participate in the Ride for Respect travel and protest activities.
- Walmart disciplined 54 participating employees under its attendance policy for missing scheduled work.
- Of the disciplined employees, 29 participated only in the Ride for Respect and not in other work stoppages during the broader campaign.
- OUR Walmart and the General Counsel alleged the discipline interfered with protected concerted activity under NLRA § 7 and violated NLRA § 8(a)(1).
- An ALJ found the Ride for Respect was a protected strike and concluded the discipline was unlawful.
- A Board majority reversed in substantial part; one member dissented.

## Issues

1. Whether the Ride for Respect work stoppage, viewed in context, was protected strike activity under NLRA § 7 or an unprotected intermittent strike scheme.
2. Whether Walmart violated NLRA § 8(a)(1) by disciplining employees for attendance-policy violations arising from participation in the Ride for Respect.

## Decision

- The Board majority held the Ride for Respect was part of a broader plan of repetitive work stoppages and therefore constituted unprotected intermittent strike activity.
- Because the conduct was unprotected, Walmart lawfully disciplined participating employees under its neutral attendance policy.
- The Board reversed the ALJ’s contrary conclusion and dismissed the § 8(a)(1) theory premised on protected status for the Ride for Respect.
- The dissent would have treated the Ride for Respect as protected strike activity, including for employees who participated only once.

## Legal Principles

- NLRA § 7 generally protects conventional strikes over terms and conditions of employment.
- Repetitive, short-duration “hit-and-run” work stoppages planned as a continuing tactic to alternate between working and striking may be treated as unprotected intermittent strikes.
- When a work stoppage is part of an unprotected intermittent strike scheme, employees who participate may be subject to discipline.
- An employer may enforce a neutral attendance policy against absences caused by participation in unprotected strike activity.
- The protected or unprotected character of a particular walkout may be assessed in light of the overall strategy and pattern of coordinated work stoppages, not solely by whether a given employee personally joined prior walkouts.

## Conclusion

The Board concluded that OUR Walmart’s Ride for Respect was a component of an intermittent strike scheme outside NLRA § 7 protection, so Walmart did not violate § 8(a)(1) by disciplining employees for attendance-policy violations stemming from participation in the work stoppage.


Walmart Stores, Inc., 368 N.L.R.B. No. 24 (2019)