NLRB Bites The Dust Again Over Ambush Election Rule

Remember in May when a federal court said the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) broke the law when it mandated its “quickie” or “ambush” election rule?  Not content to let this victory for workers stand, Obama’s regulatory agency appealed that decision.  On July 27, in another triumph of workplace freedom over forced unionization, a federal court ruled against the NLRB’s arguments.

Workers and business owners can rest a little easier knowing that the threat of union bosses springing an election on them in their workplace isn’t going to happen any time soon.  But let’s be clear, the threat remains and Big Labor will stop at nothing.

When the NLRB approved its rule to reduce the time of unionization elections to as few as seven to 10 days, it did so without having the necessary quorum for a vote.  Obama’s labor board seems to think that as long as a vote benefits Big Labor it doesn’t matter what the law says or how it affects workers.

While the law may not matter to the NLRB or union bosses, it does matter to the U.S. court system.

The NLRB’s attempt to overturn this court case reminds one of how union bosses are using the NLRB to try and win elections: if you lose the first time, try something else however underhanded to reverse the outcome.   Labor bosses want to change unionization election rules to rig the process.  If they can’t succeed in persuading workers to unionize, then they want the NLRB to shorten the time for elections or allow them to cherry-pick workers to form “micro-unions.” And when the NLRB loses in court, it wants to re-hash the same arguments in a different venue seeking a different outcome.

The District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the NLRB’s attempt to game the system, however.  In its decision, the court noted that this appeal was not the proper vehicle “for rehashing arguments that have been previously rejected, and, in any event, the argument is no more persuasive in its expanded and refined form than it was in the first go-round.”

The court also rejected the NLRB’s attempt to introduce new evidence writing, “…the Board has neither adequately explained why it could not have presented the evidence at the summary-judgment state nor established that the Court’s contrary finding was ‘clear error.’”

At its essence, the court is saying to the NLRB that it can’t attempt to introduce new evidence to justify its flawed rulemaking.

The victory for the rule of law should send a signal to the NLRB and Big Labor that its underhanded attempts to force anti-worker and anti-business rules on America’s workplaces won’t go unchallenged.  Given their history, however, it seems like the NRLB and union bosses will not stop working to force their will on America’s workplace.