Union organizing elections timeline has “nothing to do with making elections fair,” says NRF spokesperson.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) issued the following statement from Senior Vice President of Government Relations David French on a federal judge’s ruling in favor of National Labor Relations Board regulations that allow union organizing elections to be held in as little as 10 days after a petition is filed:
“We are disappointed with the court’s ruling. The board’s regulations are the labor organizing version of football’s hurry-up offense. They have nothing to do with making elections fair. Instead the NLRB’s clearly transparent objective is to deny employees an opportunity to hear from all sides about the merits of union representation and to make it much more likely that employers will make mistakes with legally adverse consequences. We are reviewing the opinion and contemplating what our next steps will be.”
“Ambush” election rules that took effect in April do not set a specific timeframe but would allow a union election to be held in as little as 10 days. That compares with a median of 38 days under the previous rules, according to NLRB data.
The regulations were upheld on Wednesday by a U.S. District Court judge in Washington in a lawsuit brought earlier this year by NRF and other business groups.
NRF is the world’s largest retail trade association, representing discount and department stores, home goods and specialty stores, Main Street merchants, grocers, wholesalers, chain restaurants and Internet retailers from the United States and more than 45 countries.
