Federal Labor Officials Seek to Clarify Union Election Rules

One week from today, the National Labor Relation Board’s "ambush election" rules will take effect. Yesterday, the Board’s Acting General Counsel Richard F Griffin, Jr. published official guidance on how regions should implement representation case procedural changes. According to the document, the rule will not "establish new timeframes for conducting elections or using decisions...until we have had some experience processing representation petitions under the final rule." However, later in the guidance document it states "that within 2 business days after service of the notice of hearing, the employer must post a Notice of Petition for Election." 

The "ambush election" rule, finalized by the NLRB in December 2014, becomes effective next Tuesday, and implements sweeping changes to union elections. It allows a labor union to hold an election in as few as 11 days – the current election is held in an average of 38 days -- after the Board receives an election petition, prevents workers from receiving balanced information from both sides of the bargaining table and requires employers to disclose their employees’ personal contact information. 

NRMCA continues to push back on implementation of the NLRB’s rule by supporting the federal lawsuit to block the ambush-election rule filed by the Coalition for a Democratic Workforce (CDW). The CDW consists of over 600 organizations representing millions of businesses, which employ hundreds of millions of employees nationwide in nearly every industry. CDW members are joined by their mutual concern over recent actions by the NLRB, which threaten entrepreneurs, other employers, employees and economic growth. The CDW has been leading the charge on court challenges to the onerous rules and regulations being pushed out of the NLRB like "ambush elections". This is one of many changes the NLRB is forcing on businesses like the ready mixed concrete industry.