NLRB to Speed Up Union Elections
The labor board is proposing to tighten up the process by ensuring that employers, employees and unions receive needed information sooner and by delaying litigation over many voter-eligibility issues until after workers vote on whether to unionize.
This will help undermine anti-union activities by companies, limiting their ability to engage in the kind of long, drawn out unionbusting campaigns that have undermined elections in the past decade. It’s not going to save the world, but it’s the kind of useful change one expects from a Democratic president.
Great news!
Would this have affected the recent drive at Target? At least to my under-informed eye, it seems like they used some of the drag-it-out tactics described in the article.
Erik, if you think of it, it might be a good idea to encourage readers to submit comments to the NLRB. There will no doubt be plenty of comments opposing these proposed changes from the US Chamber of Commerce and other bastions of corporate bureaucracy, so the more counter-weight the board can point to, the easier it will be to get them to follow up with even more rebalancing efforts.
Good news indeed – but it would be even better if the story could do a better job of explaining what the issues are here from labor’s perspective. For example, how useful is the analogy between union elections and those for public office when only one side has access to the voting lists until late in the game? And typically, the complaint about employer tactics isn’t about showing videos and one-one-one sessions, they are about captive audience meetings and the firing of union activists. Is the AFL-CIO this bad at making the case or did Greenhouse just miss the point?
Card check means no need for elections.
If only there was a President or party that gave a shit about passing the EFCA.