The National Labor Relations Board has released their 2019-2022 strategic plan, which contains four mission-related goals. Those goals include:

1. Achieving a 20% increase in case processing time for unfair labor practice charges (5% each year over 4 years)
2. Achieving resolution of a larger number of representation cases within 100 days of filing an election petition
3. Achieving organizational excellence and productivity
4. Managing agency resources efficiently and in a manner that instills public trust

The reduction in case processing time includes regional office handling, as well as reducing the time between issuance of an Administrative Law Judge’s decision and a Board Order, and issuance of a Board Order and closure of a case.

To support this plan, the General Counsel has also issued Memorandum GC 19-02.

Read the official press release here and find the strategic plan here.

The National Right to Work Foundation has sent a letter to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this week requesting that the Board address doctrines that make it difficult for employees to hold union decertification votes. 

At a recent American Bar Association Conference, Board Members made statements that the NLRB intends to use rulemaking to change two policies that restrict a workers’ right to vote out union officials’ unwanted representation: the “blocking charge” policy and the “voluntary recognition bar” doctrine. The letter from Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse requested the Board expand the scope of their rulemaking to address all non-National Labor Relations Act “bars” and “blocks” on employees’ right to hold elections to remove unwanted union representation.

“These restrictive doctrines have granted power to union bosses at the expense of the rights of the employees whose choice the National Labor Relations Act purports to protect,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Each of these Board-invented doctrines actively undermines the NLRA’s central premise by trapping workers in unions that lack the support of a majority of workers, which is why the announced rulemaking should eliminate all of these non-statutory barriers to holding decertification votes.”

Read more about the Foundation request here.

Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed a new bill, called the “Stop Walmart Act,” that would force WalMart and other large employers like them to pay a minimum wage of $15 an hour to their employees if they wish to buy back their company’s stock. They would also have to provide seven days of paid sick leave and limit CEO compensation to 150 times their median employee pay.

This new act, on the heels of the Senator’s pressure campaign to force Amazon to raise their minimum wage, doesn’t take into account varying cost-of-living averages or the complexities of running a large, multi-national corporation. Many employees at Amazon are now receiving a lower overall compensation now that Amazon has raised their minimum wage to $15 an hour, cutting bonus structures to do so.

It’s also worth noting that Sen. Sanders has not called for unions to follow these higher pay minimums. “Working America,” for instance, an arm of the AFL-CIO, recently paid $12.25 an hour for job advocating a national $15/hr. minimum wage.

Read more about the bill here.

Speaking at the American Bar Association’s 12th Annual Labor and Employment Law Conference, National Labor Relations Board Chairman John Ring touted his affinity for rulemaking and hinted at more to come, including possible regulations for union/employee access to employer property.

He is quoted as saying, “Candidly — and this is just my view — but the Board has been doing rulemaking through case adjudication . . . .Why don’t we just be honest and do rulemaking the way we’re supposed to do rulemaking?”

Potential changes in rules for union quickie elections and other employer-friendly actions also look likely under Ring’s leadership.

Read more about it here.

The 116th Congress will again become a divided Congress on January 3, 2019. House Democrats will rule their chamber for the first time since 2010 and Senate Republicans added to their majority though they are still short of the 60‐vote threshold necessary to move most legislation.

What can we expect in this new era? My thoughts on the matter can be found here: Executive Memo 13Nov2018 (PDF will open in a separate window).

The National Railway Labor Conference (NRLC) announced this week that Brendan Branon will replace current Chairman Kenneth Gradia when he retires on January 1 after 34 years.

Branon, who most recently held a position as Delta’s managing director of labor and employee relations previously served as the principal negotiator, attorney and company spokesman for Delta Air Lines’ domestic labor unions. He has also been associated with the law firm Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP in Washington, DC.

Branon will be the seventh chairman since the freight railroads formed the conference in 1963. Read more about his appointment here.