The National Labor Relations Board released a new rule on Friday that will make it easier for unions to organize.
The new rule was approved by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It will shorten the time between when a union elected is ordered and when it actually takes place. It will also make it easier to get information out, since telephone numbers and other employee contact information will have to be included in voter lists.
“I am heartened that the Board has chosen to enact amendments that will modernize the representation case process and fulfill the promise of the National Labor Relations Act,” NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce said in a statement. “Simplifying and streamlining the process will result in improvements for all parties. With these changes, the Board strives to ensure that its representation process remains a model of fairness and efficiency for all.”
AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said in a statement, “The modest but important reforms to the representation election process announced today by the National Labor Relations Board will help reduce delay in the process and make it easier for workers to vote on forming a union in a timely manner.”
“Strengthening protections for workers seeking to come together and bargain collectively is critical to workers winning much-deserved wage gains and improving their lives,” he added.
However, others have expressed opposition to the new rule, seeing it as nothing more than the NLRB favoring unions while hurting workers and employers.
Richard Berman, executive director at the Center for Union Facts, told The Daily Caller News Foundation, “Granting Big Labor access to employees’ personal contact information — including email addresses — highlights how the NLRB is willing to trample basic privacy rights in a desperate attempt to stem decades-long union membership losses.”
Berman added, “This ruling highlights why passing the Employee Rights Act, which would strengthen employees’ right to privacy by allowing employees to opt out of this information handover, is so important.”
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, said in a statement, “Christmas came early for Big Labor as the Obama Labor Board has once again given union bosses increased power to ambush workers into dues-paying union ranks.”
“The NLRB’s new ambush union organizing election rules make union organizing campaigns even more one-sided and stifle the rights of employees who may oppose unionization in their workplace,” Mix concluded. “The rules also mandate that workers’ personal information be handed over to union officials.”
Randy Johnson, the senior vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits for the U.S Chamber of Commerce, also disagrees with the decision.
“[T]he NLRB has decided once again to issue a rule that will make it significantly more difficult for employers—especially those at small business—to respond to union campaigns,” Johnson declared in a statement provided to TheDCNF.
The new rule is similar to a 2011 decision by the NLRB which was defeated in federal court during a lawsuit initiated by the Chamber of Commerce’s Litigation Center.
The rule will be published in the Federal Register on December 15, and will take effect on April 14, 2015.
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