The U.S. House of Representatives Nov. 30 passed the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act (H.R. 3094) by a vote of 235-188. The bill is designed to counteract a proposed rule from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that would shorten the timeframe for union organizing elections and reverse the Board’s recent decision in Specialty Healthcare. 

As of July 30, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is fully staffed and the new members are likely to pursue issues the NLRB did not complete in past years, many of which are designed to facilitate or expedite the union organizing process.

The National Labor Relations Board has petitioned for re-hearings in both courts that struck down its August 2011 “Notification of Employee Rights” rule. Under the rule, employers would have been required to display a poster in their workplace that contained a biased and incomplete list of employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act. 

The U.S. Senate voted July 30 in favor of five presidential nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They included new members Nancy Schiffer (D) and Kent Hirozawa (D), as well as NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce (D), who was reconfirmed. Two Republicans, Harry Johnson III (R), Philip Miscimarra (R), were also confirmed by voice vote. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed with two other courts July 17 by ruling the president violated the Constitution when he bypassed the U.S. Senate to make recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). 

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on June 24 that it will be reviewing a lower court ruling that President Obama’s early 2012 “recess” appointments of three members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) were unconstitutional. The court likely will hear the case this fall.

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) August 2011 “Notification of Employee Rights” rule was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on June 14, making it the second appellate court to invalidate the rule this year. 

All 45 Senate Republicans, the ABC-led Coalition for a Democratic Workplace and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed friend-of-the-court briefs asking for the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a lower court ruling that President Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB were unconstitutional. 

ABC May 7 welcomed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to invalidate the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) “Notification of Employee Rights” notice posting rule. A three-judge panel struck down the 2011 rule, primarily on the grounds that it violated free speech rights afforded to employers under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). 

The NLRB April 25 filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to appeal a Jan. 25 ruling that the 2012 presidential recess appointments of three members to the board were unconstitutional.