First few Article Sentences
On April 14, 2015 the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its final, "quickie" election rule that made significant changes to how union elections occur. The rule was designed to "streamline" election processes by reducing the time between the filing of a petition and the election. It instituted new rules on the filing requirement, reduced greatly the acceptable reasons to hold a pre-election hearing to resolve unit and supervisory disputes prior to an election, gave a petitioning union access to employee personal contact information, and created shortened timeframes to hold a hearing and the election. Nearly a year has gone by since the rules went into effect, so what has been the impact of the new rules?
The NLRB published data on February 25, 2016 covering the first three quarters following the implementation of the new rules. The data compares the results in key metrics for the nine month period following the date the rules went into effect (April 14, 2015 to January 14, 2016) with the same period in 2014-2015 . Predictably, the data shows significant changes to the election process, most notably the reduction in time between the filing of the petition and the election.