Dive Brief:
- With just days left until the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) no longer has a Republican majority, the Board has taken a step toward rescinding or revising a regulation known as the "quickie" or "ambush" election rule.
- The regulation, issued in 2014, allowed workers to unionize faster than they had previously been able to do.
- In a Request for Information (RFI) scheduled for publication in the Federal Register Dec. 14, NLRB will ask the public to weigh in on whether the rule should be retained, modified or rescinded. Stakeholders have until Feb. 12 to comment.
Dive Insight:
It's a busy week over at NLRB, as officials try to issue as many rulings as possible before the current Republican chair's term expires Saturday. It started with a ruling on its "reasonableness standard" governing settlement agreements, quickly followed with this latest RFI.
Next week, the Board returns to a 2-2 deadlock while it awaits another Trump appointee who will have to go through the Senate confirmation process, meaning it may be some time before the Board can tackle the Obama-era positions that it wants to reverse.
According to the newly installed general counsel, he would like to address, among other things, joint employment and disrespectful conduct — two areas in which the Board adopted employee-friendly stances during the previous administration.
