From Labor Research Association

November Election Will Determine the Fate of the NLRB

The outcome of the 2004 presidential election will determine the viability and the direction of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency charged with protecting workers’ rights and conducting elections for union representation.

The five-member NLRB is now controlled by Bush appointees. The winner of the November election will control new appointments for all five seats plus the crucial general counsel position. One NLRB member s term expires in December of this year; two expire in 2005, one in 2006, and one in 2007. The general counsel’s term expires in June 2005.

The composition of the NLRB members over the next presidential term will set the direction for the board at a crucial juncture in its history. Within the next four years, 33 percent of the entire NLRB staff will be eligible for retirement, and one third of those are supervisors. Hiring and training replacements for this large group of NLRB staffers will heavily influence the fairness and quality of the agency's work for decades to come.

The next president will also determine if the NLRB will be rebuilt as a viable agency or will continue to be limited by low budgets and understaffing. Bush’s 2004 budget increased the agency’s funding by only 2.2 percent despite an estimated 6.7 percent increase in the NLRB’s caseload for the year. The number of full-time staff at the NLRB has declined from 1,946 in 2002 to 1,875 this year.

With rent and salary increases pushing costs significantly higher, the NLRB faced an $8.7 million shortfall this year. Budget shortfalls forced the agency to cut back on the time and funds devoted to unfair labor practice investigations and trials and preparations for representation elections.

In 2004, the NLRB handled an estimated 30,000 unfair labor practices and 6,000 representation cases. Although workers’ rights have been weakened under the Bush administration’s NLRB, it essentially remains the court of last resort for most workers and their unions.

The composition of the NLRB over the next four years will also shape the agency’s position on the crucial issue of card-check recognition. The Bush-controlled NLRB has weakened this important vehicle for workers’ representation rights and is planning to review the legality of card-check recognition within the next year.

Protecting the right to card-check recognition is essential for union survival in the coming years. Major unions are using card-check recognition to secure bargaining rights without the delays and costs of an NLRB election. A new study from the Bureau of National Affairs reports that UNITE organized 85 percent of its new members in 2003 through card-check recognition.

Without protections for card-check recognition and a revitalized NLRB to conduct fair and efficient representation elections, workers’ rights will erode further.

The number of NLRB elections continued to decline last year. According to its new annual report, the NLRB conducted 2,937 conclusive representation elections in 2003, down from 3,043 in 2002. The 2003 elections included 2,516 collective bargaining elections and 421 decertification elections.

Unions won 1,579 elections, or 53.8 percent, gaining or holding on to bargaining rights for 87,499 workers.

According to more detailed data available from the BNA study: 149,000 workers were eligible to vote in representation elections in 2003, down from approximately 191,000 in 2002. Unions prevailed in 38.2 percent of the decertification elections in 2003, an improvement over 2002 when unions won 31.3 percent. The Teamsters led all unions with 567 representation elections in 2003. Overall, the Teamsters were involved in nearly one out of four representation elections held last year. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ranked second with 244 elections. The SEIU uses card-check recognition to gain bargaining rights in many cases. Of the five most active unions, in terms of number of NLRB elections over the past five years, the SEIU was the most successful, winning 75.8 percent of its representation elections. The breakdown of 2003 representation elections by bargaining unit size showed a decrease in all categories compared with 2002. There were 22 fewer large elections in 2003 and nearly 300 fewer small elections. Unions were most successful organizing units of fewer than 50 workers, with a win rate of 60.8 percent in 2003. In units of 500 or more workers, unions prevailed in only 37.9 percent of representation elections.

The 2004 presidential election will also determine the ultimate outcome of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill co-sponsored by presidential candidate John Kerry that would protect organizing rights. The bill is opposed by Bush.

The struggle that unions endure to ensure bargaining rights for relatively small numbers of workers underscores the need for a revitalized NLRB, active support for card-check recognition and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. This need will not be met if a Bush-controlled NLRB remains in place.



© 2004 Labor Research Association