In a court challenge to the NLRB’s recycled biased rules, Foundation argues Board rules violate NLRB authority to push more workers into Big Labor’s forced-dues-paying ranks

Springfield, VA (August 18, 2015) – The National Right to Work Foundation has filed an amicus curiae brief in federal court challenging the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) recently-enacted regulations that will further give union organizers the upper hand over independent-minded employees during unionization campaigns.

The rules are designed to dramatically shorten the time individual workers have to share information with their coworkers about the effects of unionization. The regulations also require employers to hand over workers’ private information to union organizers, including their phone numbers and email addresses.

The latest rules changes were rushed out before former union lawyer Nancy Schiffer’s term expired on December 16, 2014. The NLRB had previously rushed the regulations out before former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lawyer Craig Becker’s term expired in December 2011, but they were later invalidated by a federal district court in 2012 on procedural grounds.

Foundation staff attorneys now argue in an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, that the new rules violate federal law, because the Board is shirking its statutory duty to determine the scope of the bargaining unit. Under the rules, unionization elections will proceed despite disputes over the unit’s scope if less than 20 percent of the bargaining unit’s composition is contested.

They also argue in this brief that the rule requiring job providers to hand over the employees’ personal information to union bosses violates workers’ privacy. Foundation staff attorneys had previously filed a similar amicus brief when the case was heard in U.S. District Court.

“The NLRB has yet again done Big Labor’s bidding by handing down these election rules that will make union organizing campaigns even further rigged towards the union bosses, who are only interested in growing their ranks,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

“Obama’s Big Labor-stacked NLRB has designed a scheme to ambush unsuspecting workers into union ranks which also threatens the privacy rights of employees who may oppose unionization in their workplace,” continued Mix.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.