NLRB election procedure broken.

• Position: Unions - National Labor Relations Board - Brief article

The National Labor Relations Board's procedures for conducting union elections are broken and need to be overhauled, a professor in the School of Law at Indiana University, Bloomington, told the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The current procedures "do not meet modem judicial and administrative standards, and they allow unscrupulous employers to control the election process through delay and intimidation," states Kenneth Schmidt.

"The purpose of the Board's election procedures is to allow workers who want to vote on whether to form a union to be able to do so in a timely and economic manner. Yet, even in the best of circumstances, when both sides undertake a good-faith effort to make the process work, the Board's procedures work against this goal."

Schmidt cites a study showing how the current procedures result in unnecessary election delays. Most petitions to hold a union representation election proceed to a vote when both parties have consented. When the election is contested, however, workers wait an average of 124 days. Some elections have been...