The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concluded a busy fiscal year 2011 by reporting that it issued 368 decisions in contested cases while also pursuing two rulemaking initiatives during the year, which ended September 30.
The NLRB issued a statement on November 8 summing up the year. Here are highlights:
- The Board considered 272 unfair labor practice cases and 96 representation cases, an increase of 17 percent over the previous year.
- The number of pending cases at the end of the fiscal year dropped from 236 in the previous year to 209.
- August was a particularly busy month. A total of 81 decisions were issued in August, the final month of the term of former Chairman Wilma B. Liebman, who had been on the NLRB for nearly 14 years.
- The NLRB sought public comment in two rulemaking proceedings: one on the posting of a notice of employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the other on proposed changes to pre- and postelection representation case procedures.
- A final notice-posting rule was issued with some adjustments based on the 7,000 public comments received. It is scheduled to take effect on January 31, 2012. It was first set to take effect on November 14, 2011, but was delayed after legal challenges from employer organizations.
- The Board did not issue a final rule on the proposed representation-case procedure rule despite drawing more than 65,000 written comments and being the subject of a two-day public hearing in July that featured more than 60 speakers.
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