NLRB General Counsel clamps down on union organizing strategies
With the percentage of unionized workplaces at an all-time low, pure necessity has compelled unions to modernize their approach to organizing American workplaces. Especially in liberal communities where employers can be tagged with the political and economic stigma of being "antiunion," the modern union playbook gives union organizers many ideas for gaining an advantage in organizing workers.
Often through proxies, such as elected officials, unions pressure employers to make commitments that will provide passive or active assistance to organizing drives. These commitments can include remaining neutral about the union campaign, circumventing the NLRB's secret-ballot election process through a "card check" arrangement, giving the union preferential access to worksites, disclosing employees' personal contact information so union representatives can most readily reach out to potential recruits, and more.
All those commitments go beyond what the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) requires employers to do. Under existing NLRB law, those sorts of commitments haven't ordinarily been viewed as contributing unlawful support or assistance to unions. But in a September 5, 2020, guidance memorandum that is binding on NLRB regional offices nationwide, the Board's General Counsel established a new clear-cut test. Now employers can't give unions more than "ministerial" assistance in their organizing campaigns—a high standard that parallels the "strict neutrality" employers must maintain when workers or another union petitions to decertify the exclusive representative.
Conflicting standards replaced by uniform rule