Texas federal court upholds NLRB expedited election rule

A federal district court judge in Texas this week dismissed a lawsuit seeking to overturn a National Labor Relations Board rule expediting union elections. The lawsuit, brought by the Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas Inc., sought to overturn the rule, arguing it exceeded the NLRB’s authority under the National Labor Relations Act. The rule would, among other changes, reduce the time from the union’s filing of a petition until the date of the election to as little as 10 to 21 days, defer resolution of most voter eligibility questions until after the election, consolidate all election-related appeals into a single post-election process, and make board review of post-election decisions discretionary rather than mandatory. The decision will likely be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The rule is the subject of another challenge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, of which the AHA is a member, and Society for Human Resource Management.