Marathon Pundit: Congress needs to head off ambush union elections

Friday, March 30, 2012

Congress needs to head off ambush union elections

SEIU protester, Skokie, IL

Beholden to Big Labor but unable to get card check enacted into law, President Obama has resorted to radicalizing the NLRB to get the union bosses want they want.

One of those things is "ambush elections." From the Washington Examiner:

Imagine an election in which one candidate may campaign for a year while the other is only allowed to enter the race a week before Election Day. Blindsided, the latter candidate would have no time to organize a team or respond to attacks.

That is precisely what the National Labor Relations Board is trying to accomplish, by imposing an "ambush election" rule on private-sector workplaces. Yet the board's own internal report shows that the proposed rule is a solution in search of a problem.

The new rule would give employees as little as 10 days to decide whether or not to unionize. The board justified its decision to shorten the election timeline because it claimed unreasonable delays were depriving workers of their right to a union election. NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce said the rule change is necessary to give "all employees who have petitioned for an election the right to vote in a timely manner and without the impediment of needless litigation."

But the NLRB's internal report shows that the vast majority of union elections are dealt with expediently. NLRB acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon's recent report shows that more than 90 percent of all initial elections were conducted within 56 days (eight weeks) of the petition being filed. Solomon adds that the NLRB does an "excellent" job handling union elections.