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

The Administrative Procedure Act exempts certain categories of rules generally from notice-and-
comment rulemaking requirements. Public comment is not required when an agency promulgates “rules
of ... procedure or practice.”
34 The National Labor Relations Act itself does not require a showing of
interest to accompany a petition for election, and thus does not address authorization card (or any
requirement of handwritten signatures). Instead, the NLRB has imposed a showing of interest
requirement administratively, and its Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure do not
explicitly state that a union authorization card need include a hand-written signature. Section 101.17
only states that evidence of representation “is usually in the form of cards, which must be dated,
authorizing the labor organization to represent the employees or authorizing the petitioner to file a
decertification petition.” Therefore, the Board should simply amend its Rules and Regulations and
Statements of Procedure to specify methods of accepting and authenticating electronic signatures to
support a showing of interest without going through the APA’s notice-and-comment rulemaking
process.
VII. Conclusion
In conclusion, the proposed rulemaking is a modest first step in reforming a broken system that
is currently tilted heavily in favor of employers. As it now stands, most workers who want to form a
union will never get the chance. By protecting workers’ ability to participate in a fair and meaningful
election and vote on their own futures, the NLRB is taking action to begin to restore basic rights we’ve
held dear in this country for decades. We hope the Board considers additional regulations to address the
many other problems in the NLRB election system.
We encourage the Board to issue the proposed regulations as final regulations, with the
improvements discussed above, as quickly as possible.
Respectfully Submitted,
Mary Kay Hen Eliseo Medina
President Secretary Treasurer
134 usc §553(b)(3)(A).
36