How back pay is calculated in an unfair labor practice case

When the National Labor Relations Board finds that an employer fired or penalized workers for union activity, the remedy is back pay: the wages those workers would have earned if the unlawful act had never happened. The idea is simple. The money puts the worker where they would have been, no better and no worse. The arithmetic behind that idea is less simple. A back pay order subtracts what the worker earned elsewhere, adds interest, and turns on how hard the worker looked for a new job. The Cambridge Dictionary's business section defines back pay as money owed for work already performed, in arrears — which is exactly the frame a labor board uses, only stretched across months or years of a case. This explainer walks through how that calculation works and where it can go wrong for either side. Back pay is not a penalty. It is a make-whole remedy, and that distinction shapes every step of the math. A worker cannot profit from the order, and an employer cannot shrink it by delay.

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