A federal appeals court handed a win to the National Labor Relations Board Friday, rejecting a challenge by business groups to a new federal rule speeding up union elections.
The decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals leaves in place several changes that boost unions’ efforts to organize workplaces, including obligating businesses to turn over workers’ private contact information to labor groups, even if the workers themselves want that information to remain private.
The labor board, the main federal labor law enforcement agency, issued the new rules in late 2014. Texas chapters of the trade groups Associated Builders and Contractors and the National Federation of Independent Businesses argued in court that the board had overstepped its authority and violated workers’ privacy. A three-judge panel rejected all of those arguments in its Friday ruling.
“Because the rule changes … did not exceed the bounds of the board’s statutory authority under the NLRA, we affirm,” the court found. It was the second time in a year that a court shot down a challenge to the rule by a business group.
Often referred to as the “speedy election” rule, the change shortened the span from when the board approves a union’s request for a workplace organizing election to when that election is held to as little as 11 days. Previously, the process often took one to two months.
Employers often use the interim period to make the case to their workers against having a union. The rule change in effect gives them far less time to do that. Business trade associations dubbed it the “ambush election” rule. Union leaders, who had long argued that businesses use delaying tactics to undermine elections, applauded the change.
The rule gives employers just seven days from an election’s announcement to raise an objection with the labor board. It also limits the evidence employers can use for an objection and allows labor board regional directors to defer most questions regarding which workers are eligible to vote until after the election. The board also required that employers turn over all private contact information for their employees to a union to help its organizing.
The changes have made an impact. The labor board presided over 1,628 private-sector workplace elections in 2015, of which the petitioning unions won 1,128 for a 69-percent success rate, according to a report by Bloomberg BNA. That’s the highest win rate for organized labor in a decade and the second highest in the last two decades. Overall, the elections netted unions 62,000 new members.
The business groups sued to stop the rule, but the court said Friday the board was acting within its authority. The panel bluntly said that the right to privacy does not exist when unions come calling.
“[The plaintiffs] fail, however, to identify any federal law that restricts the disclosure of employee information to unions by employers,” they said.
Representatives for the business groups and the labor board could not be reached for comment.
Republican critics have introduced legislation to roll back the changes and proposed other legislation to reform workplace election rules, such as the Employee Rights Act, which would ensure that all workers have federally monitored secret ballot votes, among other reforms.
