A Right to Vote?

HR Wench, Jenn Barnes posted on EFCA and whether or not it actually takes the legal right to a vote away from employees. Her assessment was that while there is usually a vote, employees involved in an election to determine union representation in a bargaining unit is not required.

Technically, this is correct. There is no right to a confidential election mandated in the National Labor Relations Act. The National Labor Relations Board has a standard set of practices it follows, based on the guidelines established by the Wagner Act.

The actual mechanics of a union election are pretty straight forward.

Employees must authorize union representation by signing some document, such as a card or petition authorizing representation by a collective bargaining representative. Assuming a minimum 30% of the potential employee group sign, then a union can request an election via an RC petition to the NLRB. This is the first mechanism to get an election scheduled.

If the employees in the unit deliver 50% or more of their signatures, then a union will typically send a letter to the employer demanding recognition based on a showing of majority interest. Most employers will not voluntarily recognize a union for a variety of reasons, including the fact that many employees may not understand all the ramifications of signing such a document.

A typical election usually work like this:

• An NLRB board agent comes on the premises, and sits in a closed room, with observers from the employee constituency in the room from both sides, pro union and against.
• Each member of the potential bargaining unit is eligible to vote, pending protests or charges.
• The vote is conducted by giving each person a blank ballot, sending them into a small, cheesy folding voting booth with a curtain.
• Each employee is given the opportunity to mark their ballot privately.
• Each voter deposits their ballot in a sealed ballot box which stays with the Board Agent throughout the duration of the voting period.

This is a secret ballot election. This is the principal method of determining union representation as it has been developed by the NLRB since 1935.

Decertification elections, or removal of a union as the designated bargaining representative work essentially the same way. within a narrow window 60-90 days prior to the expiration of an existing collective bargaining agreement.

Like employers, most unions will not renounce their status as the authorized collective bargaining agent without demanding an election. This allows the union to make their case for remaining in place.

The reasons unions want to move away from this method are many and varied. I'll end my dissertation here, but it is important to note that the recent trends show only about 12% of the American workforce are represented by unions right now, versus nearly 35% in the 50's when I was born.

As far as elections go, unions have been winning more elections than they are losing in recent years and their win rate in percentage terms is actually increasing.

The flip side of this stat is that there are fewer elections being held and the groups covered tend to be smaller and smaller.

Data shows that for unions to simply maintain their current membership levels, it is estimated that more than 400,000 new union members must be recruited nationwide. In recent years. a good year would yield about 200,000 new members in bargaining units where the union won an RC election.