NATIONAL
Politicized NLRB failing to protect America’s working people
This month, the NLRB ruled that employers can ban workers from using their work email and other electronic communication systems for union organizing purposes. This overrules a 2014 decision that said workers who have email access for work purposes also have a presumptive right to use the communication systems to discuss working terms and conditions.
Then the NLRB reversed the expedited elections rules that have been in place for the last five years and, effective April 16, 2020, will return to the era of employers delaying union elections long enough to eliminate union support — and supporters.
These are just two examples of a recent flurry of anti-worker NLRB decisions and actions. Here is Trumka’s Dec. 19 statement about the problem:
The three remaining members of the Board — two former management-side lawyers and a former Republican congressional staffer — are corporate ideologues bent on perverting the NLRB’s long-established mandate and the law it enforces.
The Board’s Republican majority has engaged in a flurry of actions in recent days — all designed to make it harder to form a union and have a voice at work, including a comprehensive rewrite of the rules governing representation election that was issued without giving any notice to the public or opportunity for the labor or management communities to comment. This may sound like inside baseball, but it’s a big deal.
With more than 60 million workers who would vote to join a union today, we need an NLRB that carries out its mandate to ensure our voices are heard. That starts with a fully staffed Board through the nomination and confirmation of two Democratic members, and a return to its core mission of protecting the rights of working people.