By Kris Maher and Melanie Trottman

Organized labor scored a win this week, as an appeals court reaffirmed that unions can choose to organize smaller units of workers at an employer.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a 2011 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board. In that case, known as Specialty Healthcare, the NLRB sided with a union that wanted to try to organize a group of nursing assistants, despite the employer’s argument that other nonprofessional employees should be included. The board said that if an employer thinks workers have been improperly excluded from a union-proposed bargaining unit, the onus is on the employer to show that those workers share an “overwhelming community of interest” with the included workers.

The Sixth Circuit concluded the NLRB has “wide discretion” in determining which workers should be included in a bargaining unit. The court said it must uphold the board’s decision “unless the employer establishes that it is arbitrary, unreasonable or an abuse of discretion.”…