RILA supports workers’ rights to freedom of association, as well as the freedom of contract, allowing employees and employers to bargain over the terms of their own agreements without government interference. RILA further supports legislation that would preserve employees’ access to a federally supervised private ballot election when deciding whether or not to join a union. RILA has joined the employer community in adamantly opposing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) which would strip workers of their fundamental, democratic right to a private ballot vote and also interfere with the ability of workers and employers to bargain freely and come to agreement over working terms and conditions.
The tenets of this issue remain the top union priority because they provide the surest means to increase union rank-and-file membership, which has been steadily declining for decades, now accounting for 7.2 percent of the private workforce. Increased union membership translates to increased union funding that can and will be spent to forward that movement’s political agenda.
The terms of current NLRB members are as follows:
At the end of the year, when Craig Becker’s term expires, the Board will consist of only two members, which is significant due to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that a two-member Board did not have the authority to issue any case decisions, even if they were deemed noncontroversial. The political realities in Washington, make it unlikely that a third member to join the Board until early 2013 at the earliest, preventing both new decisions and appeals to existing ones. More importantly, this timeframe makes it extremely likely that the Board will release its final rule on ambush elections prior to the end of the year.
Facing the December 31 “deadline”, the NLRB has acted swiftly in recent months through case decisions to reverse course from the management-friendly Bush era toward the labor-friendly Obama era. The Board’s first proposed rule focused on increasing penalties for employers and requiring electronic posting of unfair labor practice citations. Although these rules may present challenges, the more recent rule proposing to allow for website, telephone and e-mail balloting during union organizing elections is of great concern to retailers and other employers. If adopted, this new rule would allow the NLRB to swap the effective in-person private ballot process currently used in most workplaces in favor of voting methods, which have in the past led to ballot box stuffing, voter impersonation and intimidation and fraud. As for case decisions, the NLRB is now attempting to take away an employee’s right to request a secret ballot verification election after his workplace is organized through a card check campaign, and allowing unions to distribute anti-organizing literature on company private property.
Most recently, the NLRB and DOL have released two proposed rules on “Quickie Elections” and “Persuader Activity”, in addition to the NLRB’s decision on the Specialty Healthcare case. Combined together, these three pieces of legislation are the Administration’s attempt to implement EFCA at the regulatory level. Each case/rulemaking if implemented, will impact the retail industry as follows:
RILA has been a leading voice in opposition to EFCA and any regulatory efforts to achieve the same goal. We are working with the business community in an attempt to mitigate the severe threat these proposed regulations and case decisions will have on employers. As the process moves forward, we must continue to remain completely united in opposition to any portion of it being enacted through law, regulation or case decision.
RILA continues to work with member companies and with the broader business community to educate retail employees, the general public and members of Congress about Big Labor’s back-door agenda for EFCA and the impact their success would have on our industry. RILA has partnered with the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, the Workforce Fairness Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, various state and local trade associations and others to ensure that our employees retain their rights to a private ballot and a say in their wages, benefits and working conditions.
RILA continues to work closely with state retail associations, and other state-based partners, to monitor and defeat state legislation relative to secret ballots and mandatory arbitration.
With the Republican control of the House of Representatives—many of whom ran in opposition to EFCA in their campaigns—some politicians have declared EFCA “dead”. However, union leaders are tenacious and are not about to give up on their top priority so easily, especially not after spending tens of millions of dollars and countless man hours to push the bill. For these reasons, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) appears to be the next best hope for labor bosses who want to increase their membership by stripping American workers of their rights at the workplace. RILA remains vigilant in our campaign to oppose EFCA in any form.
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers in the private sector. The NLRB does not have the ability to implement EFCA without Congress first passing it into law. However, using regulations and case decisions, the Board can accomplish some of the goals of EFCA, including shortened election times, reduced bargaining unit sizes, and increased union access to tilt the organizing process in favor of labor unions.
For more information, please contact Katherine Lugar, executive vice president of public affairs, at katherine.lugar@rila.org, or Kelly Kolb, vice president of government affairs, at kelly.kolb@rila.org, or David Garriepy, director of government affairs, at david.garriepy@rila.org.