formal comments to the Board's proposed rule. - SEIU

These proposed regulatory reforms are quite timely because American workers are currently in
the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. While corporate profits are soaring,
the middle class is disappearing as wages are stagnant, pensions are non-existent, and more and more
workers do not have access to health insurance, let alone paid sick days. As the 2007 House of
Representatives report on “Strengthening America’s Middle Class” found, the decline of unionization
and the associated decline in wages and rise in economic insecurity have had devastating effects on the
size and security of the American middle class.
was the private sector solution to the Great Depression. Promoting the rights of workers to unionize
3 The Wagner Act recognized that collective bargaining
would reduce the bargaining and wage inequality that “tends to aggravate recurrent business
depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners in industry and by
preventing the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working conditions within and between
4 American workers in our depressed economy need unions now more than ever.
industries.”
For these reasons, SEIU believes the NLRB’s proposed rules are modest, yet important steps in
modernizing the NLRB election process and hopes that they will open up the opportunity for more
workers to make free, informed, and timely choices about forming unions. To be sure, there are many
other aspects of the NLRB election process that need reform, but the proposed rules are important first
steps in addressing those aspects of the system that are amenable to regulatory reform.
In our comments, we will discuss: (I) why there is an urgent need for reforming the broken
NLRB election system; (II) why the proposed rules are an important step in fixing in reforming this
system; (III) why the proposed timelines are reasonable and preserve the employer’s ability to
campaign against the union; (IV) why modernization of the Excelsior list requirements is a critical
component of reform; (IV) why the NLRB should not modify the current blocking charge doctrine, as
proposed; and (VI) why electronic signatures should not be adopted in the rulemaking process.
I. The Current NLRB Election System is Broken
The current NLRB election system gives employers too many opportunities to hijack the election
process, greatly delaying the election date and extending the time for the employer to commit ULPs and
intimidate workers. In more than 95% of union elections, employers engage in anti-union campaigns,
which typically include:
5
forced attendance at captive audience meetings, with an average of 10-12 such meetings
per campaign;
6
“Strengthening America’s Middle Class,” H. Rep. No. 110-23, text accompanying notes 25-43 (2007); see also “Union
Decline Accounts for Much of the Rise in Wage Inequality,” American Sociological Review (August 2011).
29 U.S.C. §151.
Bronfenbrenner, No Holds Barred, supra note 2 at 10, tbl. 3.
6 Gordon Lafer, American Rights at Work, Neither Free nor Fair: The Subversion of Democracy Under National Labor
Relations Board Elections 42 tbl. 2 (2007) [hereinafter Lafer, Neither Free nor Fair].