Big Changes Coming to NLRB?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has published a report highlighting more than 50 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions that could face reversal during the Obama Administration.
“The stage will soon be set for sweeping policy changes that have received scant attention,” said Randel Johnson, the Chamber’s Senior Vice President of Labor, Immigration and Employee Benefits. “The NLRB has the ability to unduly increase union power and leverage without intervention by Congress.”
The timing of the report coincides with three nominations to the NLRB currently pending before the Senate. In July, the Chamber urged the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to hold a hearing on the Administration’s nomination of Craig Becker. In a letter, the Chamber questioned various pro-union statements by Becker as well as his relationship with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a strong proponent of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
Issues likely to be addressed by the new NLRB include:
- employee use of e-mail for union organizing purposes (Register Guard);
- standards for determining whether a union “salt” is a legitimate applicant for employment (Oil Capital; Toering Electric);
- the definition of “supervisor” and supervisory solicitation of union support (Oakwood Healthcare);
- representation of non-union employees during disciplinary interviews (IBM Corp.); and
- increased use of “extraordinary remedies” such as bargaining orders that bypass union elections (Abrahamson; Hialeah Hospital).
Johnson predicts that overturning these and other decisions outlined in the report will “tilt the balance in labor law dramatically in favor of unions and their ability to organize employers and negotiate more favorable contracts during collective bargaining.”
Click here for the full report. Stay tuned to see how this plays out.