The NLRB has a vast reach that many employees are completely unaware of. Several years ago I was the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against an employe

The NLRB has a vast reach that many employees are completely unaware of. Several years ago I was the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against an employer. About 6 months after I filed the lawsuit my employer fired me for fabricated "disciplinary" reasons (not unexpectedly on my behalf, it did take them longer to react than I had thought). Of course, my attorneys immediately sunk their teeth in this termination. Almost immediately my attorneys launched a two-pronged approach. They filed additional complaints to the lawsuit and they had me file a complaint with the NLRB. Prior to this, I had never even heard of the NLRB and when I read their website I still thought it was a protection for unionized employees. This is far from the truth. My NLRB complaint consisted of two complaints, one for wrongful termination and the second was centered around the employer trying to stop my organizing the class action by terminating my employment (I was the only member of the class that was terminated at this point). At this point, I was also separated as a plaintiff from the "class" and had my own lawsuit against the employer that encompassed the wrongful termination complaint. The NLRB almost immediately assigned an investigator (a staff attorney) to explore my complaint. This lasted a couple months with several meetings between myself, my attorneys, and the NLRB interviewing the employer and other current employees. One thing I learned is that there is nothing an employer hates more than a federal agency digging around their business. In the end, the NLRB found both my complaints valid. They offered a settlement to the employer that involved monitoring and random complaince checks for a period of time. At the same time, my lawsuit continued through the courts. What did help my case was the NLRB findings. It was hard for the employer to deny complaints when they had already settled complaints with the NLRB. In the end, we ended up settling the entire case. After the case was settled the employer ended up terminating most, if not all, of the employees that were involved for various reasons (mostly false allegations). Overall, the NLRB does provide a level of protection for the common employee and working conditions not just for unionized employees that I, and I am sure many others, are completely unaware of.