Can Nonprofits Unionize? Rights, Elections, and Bargaining

Yes, nonprofits can unionize. Employees at most private nonprofit organizations have the same right to form or join a union as workers at for-profit companies, and the process runs through the National Labor Relations Board under the National Labor Relations Act. The main variables are the size of the nonprofit, whether it has a religious mission, and which employees are eligible to be part of the bargaining unit.¹

Which Nonprofits Are Covered

The NLRB will only assert jurisdiction over a nonprofit whose operations affect interstate commerce enough to meet the Board’s financial thresholds. Those benchmarks depend on the type of organization:

Social service organizations: $250,000 in gross annual revenue.
Hospitals and other health care facilities: $250,000 in gross annual revenue.
Nursing homes and visiting nurses associations: $100,000 in gross annual revenue.
Private colleges and universities: $1 million in gross annual revenue from all sources, excluding contributions restricted to non-operating purposes.
Most other nonprofits: $50,000 in annual goods or services flowing across state lines.

Gross revenue means all income before expenses, including grants, donations, program fees, and government contracts.² Most federal grants that fund program operations count toward the threshold.³

A nonprofit below these numbers isn’t automatically outside labor law. Several states run their own labor relations boards that pick up employers the NLRB declines to oversee, and coverage varies significantly by state.

Which Employees Can Join a Union

Not every worker on a nonprofit’s payroll has the right to be in a bargaining unit. The lines matter.

Rank-and-File Staff

Program coordinators, administrative assistants, case managers, communications staff, and other day-to-day employees have the clearest right to organize. The NLRA protects their ability to discuss workplace conditions, distribute union literature, and sign authorization cards without retaliation.⁴ Full-time and part-time workers with similar duties can share a bargaining unit.

Supervisors and Managers

Supervisors are excluded from NLRA protections. The statute defines a supervisor as someone with authority to hire, fire, transfer, suspend, promote, discipline, or direct other employees using independent judgment, not just routine or clerical oversight.⁵ Titles don’t decide it. A “team lead” at a nonprofit may or may not actually exercise supervisory power, and the Board looks at what the person actually does. Sporadic supervisory fill-in duties don’t disqualify someone from the unit; regular exercise of that authority does.

Managerial employees who shape organizational policy and confidential employees who help management with labor relations are also excluded, under Board decisions rather than the statute’s text.

Professional Employees

Licensed professionals like social workers, attorneys, or nurses can organize, but they get an added protection: the Board cannot place them into the same bargaining unit as non-professional staff unless a majority of the professionals vote to be included.⁶ They can also form a separate unit. This comes up often at organizations with mixed workforces, like legal aid offices where attorneys work alongside administrative staff.

Volunteers and Interns

Unpaid volunteers and unpaid interns generally fall outside the NLRA because they aren’t “employees” receiving compensation. Stipended positions sit in a gray area. The more the arrangement resembles regular employment, with set hours, assigned duties, and ongoing pay, the more likely the Board treats the person as an employee with organizing rights.

Religious Nonprofits Are Different

Religious organizations sit in a distinct legal space, and two separate doctrines can pull them outside the ordinary rules.

In NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago (1979), the Supreme Court held that the NLRB lacks jurisdiction over schools operated by a church to teach religious and secular subjects, because asserting jurisdiction would risk entangling the government in religious affairs.⁷ The Board has extended that analysis to other religiously affiliated nonprofits by asking whether asserting jurisdiction would significantly infringe on the organization’s religious mission.

The separate “ministerial exception,” recognized in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC (2012), bars employment-related claims by ministers against religious employers.⁸ It reaches anyone whose role involves religious leadership, teaching the faith, or leading religious services, regardless of formal title.

Employees in clearly secular roles at religious nonprofits, like maintenance workers, food service staff, IT support, or bookkeepers, often keep their organizing rights. The Board asks whether the specific position carries a religious function, not whether the employer has a religious identity. Blended positions, like a counselor at a faith-based recovery program expected to incorporate spiritual guidance, are harder to predict.

How the Organizing Process Works

A union campaign usually starts with informal conversations among coworkers. The formal legal process begins once those conversations turn into a campaign for representation.

Authorization Cards

The first concrete step is collecting signed authorization cards. Each card must identify the specific union and clearly express the signer’s desire for representation. To file a valid petition for an election, organizers need cards from at least 30% of the proposed bargaining unit.⁹ Experienced organizers aim well above that floor, since support often erodes once management begins responding to the campaign.

Defining the Bargaining Unit

Deciding who is in and out of the proposed unit is one of the most strategically important choices in the whole process. The group must share a “community of interest,” meaning similar duties, working conditions, supervision, and pay structures. At a nonprofit with both office-based staff and field workers, whether those groups belong in one unit or two can shape the election outcome.

Filing the Petition

Once cards are collected, organizers file Form NLRB-502 with the regional NLRB office.¹⁰ The petition requires the employer’s exact legal name, a precise description of the job titles included and excluded, and an employee headcount used to verify the 30% showing of interest. The union also serves a copy of the petition on the employer.

The Election

The Board’s regional director confirms jurisdiction and the petition’s support, then sets a hearing if the parties can’t agree on election details.⁹ The vote is a secret ballot, and a simple majority of votes cast decides it, not a majority of eligible voters. Either party then has seven days to file objections. If none succeed, the Board certifies the union as the exclusive bargaining representative, and the employer is legally obligated to negotiate.

Voluntary Recognition

An election isn’t the only path. An employer can voluntarily recognize a union after a neutral third party verifies that a majority of employees have signed authorization cards. This “card check” process skips the election entirely, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service offers verification at no cost.¹¹ Employers aren’t generally required to agree. If the employer declines, the union proceeds through the standard election process.

The NLRB’s 2023 Cemex decision added another wrinkle. When a union presents evidence of majority support and demands recognition, the employer must either recognize the union or promptly file its own petition seeking an election. If the employer commits unfair labor practices that would taint the election, the Board can order recognition and bargaining without a vote.¹² The current NLRB has been revisiting recent precedents, and the framework’s long-term status is uncertain.

What Employers Cannot Do During a Union Drive

Section 8(a) of the NLRA lists five categories of employer conduct that count as unfair labor practices:¹³

Interference with organizing rights, including threats to cut benefits, close programs, or reduce hours if employees unionize.¹⁴
Domination, meaning creating or bankrolling a company-controlled alternative to a genuine union.
Discrimination, such as firing, demoting, or reassigning someone for supporting the union.
Retaliation for filing charges or testifying in a Board proceeding.
Refusal to bargain with a certified union.

The Board has also ruled that mandatory “captive audience” meetings, where employers require staff to attend anti-union presentations, violate the Act. Under a November 2024 decision, employers can still hold such meetings, but they must give advance notice of the topic, make clear that attendance is voluntary, and keep no records of who shows up.¹⁵

A mission-driven culture doesn’t change any of this. An executive director who says “unions don’t belong at organizations doing this kind of work” is expressing a protected opinion. One who says “if you unionize, we’ll have to cut the after-school program” is making a prohibited threat.

After Certification: Bargaining a Contract

Winning the election is the start, not the finish. Both sides must meet at reasonable times and negotiate in good faith over wages, hours, and other working conditions, and either can insist that any agreement be put in writing.¹³ Good-faith bargaining requires genuine engagement with proposals, but the law does not require either side to agree to any particular term or make concessions.

First contracts are notoriously hard to reach. The average takes well over a year, and roughly a third of newly certified unions fail to secure any contract within three years. Nonprofits face particular pressures: budgets tied to grant cycles, boards with limited labor relations experience, and staff who grow frustrated when improvements don’t come quickly.

Health Care Nonprofits

Nonprofit hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care institutions operate under modified bargaining timelines. When either party wants to change or end an existing contract, the notice period is 90 days instead of 60. If bargaining reaches impasse and the union considers a strike, it must give the employer and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service at least 10 days’ written notice before any work stoppage.¹⁶ For initial contracts after a first-time certification at a health care institution, the union must notify federal and state mediation agencies at least 30 days before any strike.¹³

Strike Rights

Nonprofit employees have the same fundamental right to strike as workers at for-profit companies, but the protections depend on why they walk out.

Employees striking over an employer’s unfair labor practice cannot be fired or permanently replaced, and the employer must reinstate them once the strike ends.¹⁶ Employees striking for economic reasons like higher pay retain their employee status and can’t be fired, but the employer can hire permanent replacements. Once the strike ends, economic strikers go on a preferential rehire list rather than being guaranteed their old jobs.

Strikes lose protection entirely when they involve sit-ins, intermittent walkouts designed to disrupt without a full commitment, violence, or violations of a no-strike clause in an existing contract. A strike at a nonprofit hospital or nursing home without the required 10-day notice is unlawful.¹⁶

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC Ch. 7 Labor-Management Relations
2
National Labor Relations Board. Jurisdictional Standards
3
National Labor Relations Board. Basic Guide to the National Labor Relations Act
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 151 Findings and Declaration of Policy
5
Cornell Law School – Legal Information Institute. 29 USC 152(11) Definition of Supervisor
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 159 Representatives and Elections
7
U.S. Supreme Court Reports. NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U.S. 490 (1979)
8
Justia Law. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171 (2012)
9
National Labor Relations Board. NLRB Representation Case Procedures Fact Sheet – Main Steps in Representation
10
National Labor Relations Board. Steps for Filing a Petition
11
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). FMCS Card Check Services
12
National Labor Relations Board. Board Issues Decision Announcing New Framework for Union Representation
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 158 – Unfair Labor Practices
14
National Labor Relations Board. Interference with Employee Rights
15
National Labor Relations Board. Board Rules Captive-Audience Meetings Unlawful
16
National Labor Relations Board. The Right to Strike