featherbedding practice

a practice which has as its purpose or effect requiring an employer— (A) to employ or agree to employ any person or persons in excess of the number of employees reasonably required by such employer to perform actual services; or (B) to pay or give or agree to pay or give any money or other thing of value in lieu of employing, or on account of failure to employ, any person or persons, in connection with the conduct of the business of an employer

Defined by the Supreme Court in American Newspaper Publishers Ass'n v. National Labor Relations Board, 345 U.S. 100 (1953).