The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is reprising its 2011 effort to change the rules related to union representation—an effort that sparked opposition from employers then and will surely do so again.
A statement from the NLRB says that in substance, the proposed amendments are identical to the representation procedure changes first put forth in June 2011. The proposed amendments were struck down in 2012 when a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C., cited the lack of an NLRB quorum.
When the NLRB announced the proposed amendments in 2011, they were strongly opposed by employer groups, which claimed the changes favored unions at the expense of employers. What the Board called a streamlining of elections and a way to prevent unnecessary litigation employers called “quickie election” rules that would “ambush” employers without giving them time to respond to union organizing campaigns.
A statement from the NLRB on February 5 said the new notice of proposed rulemaking will appear in the Federal Register on February 6. The proposed reforms would:
- Allow for electronic filing and transmission of election petitions and other documents;
- Ensure that employees, employers, and unions receive and exchange timely information they need to understand and participate in the representation case process;
- Streamline pre- and postelection procedures to facilitate agreement and eliminate unnecessary litigation;
- Include telephone numbers and e-mail addresses in voter lists to enable parties to the election to be able to communicate with voters using modern technology; and
- Consolidate all election-related appeals to the NLRB into a single postelection appeals process.
In announcing the proposed amendments, NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce said, “With a Senate-confirmed five-member Board, I feel it is important for the Board to fully consider public comment on these proposed amendments, along with the comments we previously received in 2011.”
Pearce went on to say that the NLRB is reviewing the proposals with an open mind. “No final decisions have been made,” he said. “We will review all of the comments filed in response to the original proposals, so the public will not have to duplicate its prior efforts in order to have those earlier comments considered.”
Pearce, along with the other Democrats on the NLRB—Kent Y. Hirozawa and Nancy Schiffer—approved issuing the proposed rule. Republican members Philip A. Miscimarra and Harry I. Johnson III dissented.
The AFL-CIO was quick to praise the development. “We applaud the National Labor Relations Board for proposing these common-sense rules to reduce delay in the NLRB election process,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. Noting the 2011 proposal, he said, “The rules were needed then, and they are still needed now.”