Tag Archives: NLRB

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled against the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) “ambush rule” that would greatly shorten the time an employer had to defend against an effort to unionize his business, from 42 days to 10 days.

With five board members, the NLRB needs a quorum of three to pass any “administrative” rules but when the “ambush rule” was promulgated by the union-friendly board, only two were present. Said Boasberg:

According to Woody Allen, 80 percent of life is just showing up. When it comes to satisfying a quorum requirement, though, showing up is even more important than that. Indeed, it is the only thing that matters—even when the quorum is constituted electronically. In this case, because no quorum ever existed for the pivotal vote in question, the Court must hold that the challenged rule is invalid.

The rule would clearly have favored unions in that it would greatly shorten the time an employer would have to promote his side of the issue. According to labor policy specialist Vincent Vernuccio at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, union efforts to persuade employees to join a union begin months in advance of any formal demand for a vote. Shortening the time to respond to less than two weeks gives unions an unfair advantage. And Bloomberg Government noted that when unions are able to force elections within 15 days of their demand for a vote, they are