Business groups suing the National Labor Relations Board over its recent changes to union election laws accused it of deliberately slow-walking its response to their lawsuit in an effort to get the rule into effect before the suit is resolved.
In a Texas court filing, the two groups leading the suit, the National Federation of Independent Business and Associated Builders and Contractors, requested that the judge deny the labor board’s “disingenuous” motion for more time to respond to the lawsuit, saying it was a clear stalling tactic.
They noted that the rule was set to go into effect April 14 and said that the labor board was not following its usual procedure of letting the legal challenges play out first.
“In the present case, the board has acted arbitrarily by departing from … precedent without adequate explanation and by refusing to delay the effective date of the much more disruptive new rule pending judicial review,” the groups said in their brief.
A spokesman for the National Labor Relations Board did not respond to a request for comment.
The board’s election law changes — known as the “quickie” or “speedy” election rules — would shorten the time period from when the board says that an employer must allow workers to vote on a union to when the vote is actually held. Currently, the process takes on one to two months. The change would shorten that to as little as two weeks. The rule was adopted on Dec. 12
The board’s new rule also would limit the ability of employers to raise objections on issues such as which workers are eligible to vote and requiring the businesses to give unions the personal contact information for all of its employees, regardless of whether the employees themselves authorized it.
Businesses often use the interim period to try to convince employees that a union wouldn’t be in their best interests, and unions have long sought to speed up the elections to prevent that.
Under President Obama, the labor board has vigorously pursued the rule change. It passed a version in 2011, only to have it thrown out of court the following year after business groups challenged it.
The plaintiffs in their Friday filing cited the earlier case to argue that the board had to have known the legal challenge was coming because it had happened before.
“Contrary to the board’s motion, the board was made aware of the legal grounds on which the new rule would be challenged long before the rule became final. The previous [less onerous] version of the rule was challenged in court in 2012 on a number of the same grounds that have been relied on by plaintiffs here,” the business groups noted.
