As expected, the National Labor Relations Board’s proposal to streamline the union voting process drew both sharp criticism and strong support in a recent hearing before the House Education and Workforce Committee.
Michael Lotito, a lawyer for the firm of Jackson Lewis in San Francisco, testified that the rules change “all but shuts the door on employers providing critical information to employees about the petitioning union, collective bargaining and potential strikes.”
Michael Eastman, a spokesman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the proposal is part of the Obama administration drive “to tilt the playing field in organized labor’s favor,” according to a Bloomberg account of the hearing.
But Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, a labor professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, testified that “”The board’s election procedure is broken and in need of an overhaul … It allows unscrupulous employers to control the election process through delay and intimidation.”
For the full Bloomberg story, go here.
Big changes called for
As you’ll recall, the NLRB proposes to change the rules governing the time frame and administration of the elections companies hold to decide whether the majority of their employees wish to form a union.
The changes would give employers less time to make management’s case against organizing, require employers to make worker info (like personal phone numbers and email addresses) available to union officials, and delay the resolution of disputes over which employees are eligible to vote in the secret ballot elections.
The NLRB is also expected to hold its own public hearings on the proposal July 18 and 19 in Washington, D.C.
