Coalition urges Senate to nullify NLRB rule expediting union elections

The Coalition to Protect a Democratic Workplace, whose members include the AHA, yesterday urged the Senate to adopt a resolution (S.J. Res. 8) that would nullify a National Labor Relations Board final rule changing the process for filing and processing petitions for union representation of employees. Effective April 14, the rule will shorten the time between a union filing a petition for election and the NLRB holding an election from an average 38 days to as few as 14. “The NLRB’s own statistics reveal that for the last 10 years the median time from petition to election was 38 days, with nearly 95% of elections occurring within 56 days in 2013 and 95.7% within 56 days in 2014,” the coalition said in a letter yesterday to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN). “There is no indication that Congress intended a shorter election time frame; indeed, based on the legislative history of the 1959 amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, it is clear Congress believed that an election period of at least 30 days was necessary to adequately assure employees the ‘fullest freedom’ in exercising their right to choose whether they wish to be represented by a union.”