Late last year, the Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) – without going through the notice and comment process – issued procedural regulations that made significant changes to the rules under which union representation elections are conducted. The changes were designed in large part to roll back controversial election rule regulations issued in 2014 during the Obama Administration by a then Democrat-controlled NLRB.
On March 6, 2020, the AFL-CIO filed a lawsuit challenging the most recent revisions on grounds that certain provisions of the final rule were substantive, rather than procedural, and therefore did not comply with the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). In response, the NLRB agreed to postpone the rule’s effective date from April 16, 2020, until May 31 to allow the trial court to issue a ruling.
On May 30, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with the AFL-CIO and issued a ruling in AFL-CIO v. National Labor Relations Board, No. 1:20-cv-00675 (D.D.C. May 30, 2020), blocking several – but not all – provisions of the Board’s 2019 election procedures from going into effect.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.