Brown-Forman handed out raises and bourbon to stop a union – then the NLRB stepped in
A federal appeals court just struck down the NLRB's strongest weapon for forcing union recognition after tainted elections.
On March 6, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit handed Brown-Forman Corporation a significant win, invalidating the National Labor Relations Board's Cemex bargaining-order standard in the first appellate test of the controversial 2023 policy. The 2-1 ruling raises questions about other NLRB cases relying on the same standard and redraws the remedial landscape for employers navigating union organizing campaigns.
The dispute began at Brown-Forman's Woodford Reserve facility in Versailles, Kentucky, where employees started talking to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in February 2022 about forming a union. Wages had stagnated even as production ramped up, and a $1-per-hour raise the company announced did little to quiet the discontent.
When management learned that the Teamsters likely held authorization cards from 50 to 60 percent of employees, internal emails revealed the alarm. Executives moved quickly to put together a compensation package that would blunt the campaign's momentum. Despite having told workers that no further raises were coming until the next fiscal year, the company reversed course and announced a $4-per-hour across-the-board increase – the first time Woodford Reserve employees had ever received two across-the-board wage...
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