ABC reaffirmed its strong opposition to the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) reissued “ambush election” proposal in a letter to the leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce ahead of this morning’s full committee hearing. The hearing, titled “Culture of Union Favoritism: The Return of the NLRB’s Ambush Election Rule,” and ABC’s letter focused on NLRB’s shift under the Obama Administration from a neutral arbiter of federal labor law to an advocate of union organizing.

The ambush election rule was originally proposed in 2011 but was withdrawn in 2013 after a U.S. Court of Appeals sided with the ABC-led Coalition for a Democratic Workplace’s legal challenge that NLRB’s attempts to finalize the rule were unconstitutional. However, the rule was reissued on Feb. 5, 2014.

Like its predecessor, the reissued proposal would significantly shorten the amount of time between when a union files a representation petition and when an election takes place from the current average of 38 days, to as few as 10. Additionally, the proposal would require employers to submit their employees’ personal contact information to union organizers.

ABC continues to oppose the NLRB’s ambush election rule because it would deprive employees of balanced information regarding the union representation process by significantly limiting the time in which an employer can educate employees about the pros and cons of union representation. Furthermore, the burdens and uncertainty created by the proposed rule, and others like it, threaten job growth while the construction industry continues to struggle to consistently create jobs.

If finalized, the NLRB ambush elections proposal would work hand-in-glove with the U.S. Department of Labor’s soon-to-be-final “persuader” rule, which ABC also opposes. Combined, these rules would achieve the primary objective of the deceptively named Employee Free Choice Act by speeding up the union election process while simultaneously making it harder for employers to obtain expert advice and for employees to receive balanced information.

ABC will continue to monitor these rulemakings and alert members of any developments through Newsline.