Fair Union Elections

Many of these initiatives threaten to negatively impact Small Businesses, the self-employed, and the economy. During the Biden administration, we saw moves to reinstate Obama-era labor policies at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), even though many of these policies were previously rejected on a bipartisan basis, widely criticized by the regulated community as unworkable, and rejected by federal courts. While the Trump administration is not expected to follow suit, these harmful policies continue to attract the support of lawmakers, posing a long-term threat to Small Business interests.

Members of Congress and administration officials must be mindful to focus on maintaining U.S. economic growth, and prevent organized labor from expanding their reach, and the rules they have championed, primarily through the NLRB.

• PRO Act: A substantive rewrite of the 85-year-old National Labor Relations Act that was passed by the House in early 2020, the PRO Act would codify the ambush election rule and micro-unit policy, neuter employers’ ability to mount counter-campaigns to union organizing attempts and weaken right-to-work laws that protect employee free choice. This legislation also would permit the NLRB to issue monetary penalties on employers for violating the NLRA and would more strictly require bargaining after an initial certification of a new union.
• Employee Free Choice Act or “Card check”: The Employee Free Choice Act proposes to go beyond the PRO Act by allowing workers to use a process “card check,” in which a majority of workers sign authorization cards empowering a union to represent them, as an initial option for forming a union.