NLRB - The National Union Encouragement Board

by Brad Peck

So I am having a beer last night and reading the NLRB's Election Report Six Months Summary (that's right, we know how to party in D.C.) where I saw that from October 2009 through March 2010 the AFL-CIO again won a clear majority (61.5%) of "secret-ballot voting by employees in NLRB-conducted representation elections" continuing to bust the EFCA myth that "Unions Can’t Organizing Under Secret Ballots." Nothing new there, but going back to the NLRB twitter feed, I did notice something interesting. These recent press releases:

May 6th - Press Release: Pennsylvania nurses vote for union in NLRB election http://tinyurl.com/25e9mm6

Apr 28th - Press release: Ballot count finds Houston nurses favor union representation http://tinyurl.com/2e284dl

Now I am hardly an NLRB junkie, but I couldn't recall seeing them issue press releases regarding elections before. To the archives!

So the NLRB has issued 24 press releases this year -- and yes these were the first two to report the results of an election where workers were choosing to be represented or not. To be fair, there was another release "NLRB releases vote count in California Kaiser election" where the NLRB reported on a vote count in which workers voted to leave the SEIU for NUHW -- curiously that one didn't make it onto Twitter.

Going back further none of the forty 2009 releases reported on the results of representation elections, there were also zero such releases in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, or in 1996 where the archives stop.

Unions and some Board folks have in the past cherry picked a few words out of the 1935 policy declaration in the Wagner Act that it is the policy of the US to "encourage" collective bargaining – as if the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments were never enacted. This may be the line of thought justifying the new issuance of releases trumpeting employees choosing a union, while not issuing similar releases heralding the rejection of a union -- but the NLRB should be proud whenever a fair election is conducted, whatever the results.

With fair elections resulting in employees choosing representation becoming the norm, one wonders whether those who want Craig Becker and the other members in the majority on the board to change the rules for elections understand that these results undermine their position.

// Update: Great background on the NLRB's PR change at Shopfloor here and here.

Comments

[ChamberPost]

Indeed you do. Thanks for this. Quite a few folks have sent me stuff, will do a follow-up soon. Meanwhile, see Shopfloor's great coverage and this HuffPo piece from Nancy Cleeland upon leaving the LA Times:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-cleeland-/why-im-leaving-the-la-tim_b_49697.html (BP)

[Daily Reader]

Brad,

Maybe I party harder. On the NLRB website, there is an archive of "Memos". See General Counsel Memorandum GC 10-02. Subject "Press Release Policy".

an excerpt - words of Ronald Meisburg, General Counsel - "I am asking all Regional Directors to cooperate with the Agency’s new Office of Public Affairs (OPA), directed by veteran journalist Nancy Cleeland, as it develops a more active public information policy. As part of that effort, Regional Directors, working with their AGCs should provide the OPA with notice of upcoming events in significant cases such as the issuance of complaints, pursuit of injunctive relief, settlements, issuance of Decisions and Directions of Elections, Post-election reports and scheduling of elections."

Yes, it's politicized, and designed in a way to limit the number of announcements involving ULPs against unions. The real issue here is of the administration creating the Office of Public Affairs while barely disguising its intent.