Here’s the good news: On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act—a bill to maintain the delicate balance in NLRB-conducted union elections.

Here’s the bad news: The bill, which is actually one of the better bills for employers and their employees to come out of the union-related bills floating around the House,  has no chance of becoming law while union-controlled Democrats have the majority in the U.S. Senate and Barack Obama occupies the White House.

Here’s the really bad news: Wednesday, with the complicity of the lone GOP member at the National Labor Relations Board (who stated he did not want to hurt the image of the [union-run] agency), the NLRB members voted two to one to strip employers of due process and left the door open to give unions the ability to conduct so-called ambush elections on companies and their employees.

In laymen’s terms, here are the main components of what Wednesday’s NLRB vote means to employers and employees:

• Unions can continue targeting companies and, whenever they wish, file a petition to hold an election.
• Based on the NLRB’s recent “micro-union” decision, said election petition can consist of nearly any unit (grouping of employees) the union asks for—regardless of whether the employer believes it is an appropriate unit
• Once the NLRB regional director issues determines the unit and orders the election, there will be no appeal to the NLRB in Washington prior to the election.
• The NLRB also eliminated a long-standing practice that an election would not take place sooner than 25-days following a regional director’s direction for an election—thereby opening the door for ambush elections.

While the approved proposal is a “scaled down” version of the NLRB’s draft proposal last June (the NLRB did not, for example, rule that employers must furnish employee e-mails and telephone numbers—yet), it is still a huge departure from decades of NLRB precedent.

The chart below, prepared by Nixon Peabody attorney (and former NLRB member) John Raudabaugh illustrates what was and was not approved by Wednesday’s “scaled back” actions:

As Raudabaugh notes:

Although the final rule appears to be less onerous than the initial proposed rule, the key changes are retained—allowing for elections to be scheduled in a much shorter time period by eliminating the 25-30 day post hearing delay and postponing, or even ignoring, legitimate issues for review regarding voting eligibility and unit scope. Chairman Pearce made clear that those provisions of the proposed rule that are not included in the forthcoming final rule will remain viable for future Board action once the Board returns to at least three members following Member Becker’s departure.

The attorneys at Ogletree Deakins also note:

Even though the Board now proposes a rule that is less onerous to employers than its original rule, which would have reduced the time from filing of the election petition to the holding of the vote to as little as 10-21 days, the new rule, by eliminating pre-election appeals of Regional Director rulings, still substantially shortens the period from filing of the petition to the date of election from the current Board target of 42 days. Elections will be held quicker than before, the precise period being determined by the circumstances in each case.

To reiterate, the NLRB’s scaled down version is bad for both private-sector employers and their union-free employees (which is more than 93% of the private-sector workforce). However, the door remains open for the NLRB to make it even worse.

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com