This ruling:
- Eliminates the process for anticipatory withdrawal of union recognition
- Replaces the process of unfair labor charge with totally new elections
It is quite evident that President Trump and the Republican Party has again stabbed Unions in the back. The NLRB’s recent ruling has made it much easier for employers to eliminate their union after obtaining evidence that the majority of the workers no longer support the union.
The NLRB Republican majority has eased the legal restrictions and allowed an employer to cease bargaining prior to the expiration of the CBA and state that it will remove the union when the contract ends. Prior to this change, if an employer were to make such an anticipatory withdrawal, the Union would file an unfair labor practice. As a result of this change of procedure, the Union cannot be charged, bringing into question whether the union (in essence) lacked a majority support when the contract expired.
Employers can now announce a pending withdrawal of recognition within 90 days of the contract expiration and withdraw when the CBA ends. The Union then has 45 days to file a petition for a new election. This was a 3-1 decision based on Johnson Control’s Inc. anticipatory withdrawal of recognition to a UAW affiliate that represented 160 of its workers. (NLRB 10-CA-151843 7/3/19) In overturning portions of the 2001 ruling in Levitz Furniture, the NLRB said this ruling protected employee free choice and that it would apply the new framework retroactively. The NLRB is also considering changes to other restrictions on elections to decertify unions.
Lauren McFerran the Board’s only Democratic member stated that the decision allows an employer to withdraw recognition “in the face of objective evidence that the union has not lost majority support among the employees it represents” and instead requires a new election. “Disregarding the union’s continuing presumption of majority support and dismissing the union’s rebuttal evidence as immaterial, the employer is now permitted to oust the union as the employees’ bargaining representative the second the contract expires…..and the union remains ousted, unless and until it seeks and wins a Board election,” McFerran said in her dissent.
Union members should respond to this decision at the ballot box.
Read full NLRB Opinion https://www.nlrb.gov/case/10-CA-151843
Pete Marchese, Director of Operations, Union Built PC