Posts tagged quorum
House Committee Debates NLRB’s Fairness and Transparency
June 18, 2025 // Also at issue was how workers vote for or against unionization. When workers select a union, said Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker, they should be allowed to make that choice “securely and privately” and “without intimidation or coercion.” He cited the “true language” of the NLRA that says a “union must be chosen by the majority of all the employees in a unit.” Vernuccio advocated for the use of secret-ballot elections in place of card check, an organizing method in which a union gathers worker signatures.
Misread: How Legal Authorities Allowed Tyranny of the Minority to Subvert Worker Enfranchisement
June 10, 2025 // It is time to bring worker enfranchisement to unions across the country. In a new report co-published by Institute for the American Worker and Mackinac Center, author Steve Delie outlines how union organizing should be held to a higher threshold, requiring unions to win a majority of all employees at a job site or, at a minimum, require a quorum of those workers to vote in order to organize them. Delie shows the current majority of votes approach is contrary to the plain language of the National Labor Relations Act, the federal law that governs private sector unions. The NLRA clearly requires a “majority of the employees in a unit” to certify a union.
‘We’re losing doctors every day’: As Mass General Brigham primary care doctors vote on union, effort is slowed by Trump
June 2, 2025 // The health system says the NLRB regional director in Boston erred by allowing 237 primary care doctors at 29 practices to vote on whether to form their own union. In fact, MGB says, as many as three-quarters of those physicians were ineligible to vote under NLRB rules because they work in practices that are integrated into acute-care hospitals with other kinds of doctors. Under the rules, MGB contends, the proposed union would have to include all physicians at those hospitals, an argument the regional director previously rejected.
Whole Foods Union Certified by US in First for Amazon’s Grocer
June 1, 2025 // Employees at the Philadelphia site voted 130 to 100 in January to unionize with the United Food & Commercial Workers union. Whole Foods argued the result should be overturned, alleging the union made promises and provided free car rides to workers that prevented a fair election, and that a ruling by the labor board’s Democratic members deprived the company of its rights. The union has denied wrongdoing.
U Rochester Ph.D. Student Workers Strike for an Election Without the NLRB
April 27, 2025 // University of Rochester Ph.D. student workers began striking this week to pressure the institution to agree to what they call a “fair union election.” And for the process to be fair, they say, it can’t be handled by the Trump-era National Labor Relations Board. “We don’t see any kind of path through the NLRB at present,” said George Elkind, a Ph.D. student on the proposed UR Graduate Labor Union’s organizing committee.
‘Trump and Musk are setting the example’: how companies are becoming emboldened to be more anti-union
April 10, 2025 // That tougher behavior under former president Ronald Reagan sped the decline of private sector unions. Today, just 6% of private sector workers are in unions, while 32% of public sector workers are. Anti-union ideologues are increasingly targeting public sector unions, which often support Democrats. “Because almost half of the labor movement is now in the public sector, the assault that we’re seeing now is really focused on the public sector,” McCartin said. “That really threatens to break the spine of the labor movement.”
President Trump and Republicans in Congress can give workers a real voice in unionization elections.
April 2, 2025 // Representative Onder introduced a bill in Congress to empower more workers. The Worker Enfranchisement Act would require at least two-thirds of eligible workers to participate in a unionization election. If that threshold is cleared and the union wins, it gets the monopoly to represent all workers. If that threshold isn’t met, the election is invalid, because not enough workers had an opportunity to make their voices heard. Quorum requirements are common in Congress, state legislatures, and even the federal board that certifies union elections. Jobsites shouldn’t be different — not when workers’ futures are on the line.
National Labor Relations Board Back to Quorum Strength as Member Wilcox Is Reinstated
March 11, 2025 // The statutory limitations swayed the judge, as did the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor, where the Court upheld similar limits on the president’s ability to fire a Federal Trade Commission Official. In sum, Judge Howell ordered Wilcox’s reinstatement, giving the Board the quorum it lacked. This decision has implications for the President’s recent Executive Order seeking to vest all lawmaking power of Independent Administrative Agencies like the NLRB in the President’s office. Given the stakes here, the court’s decision is certainly not the final word, as President Trump’s team is expected to appeal, perhaps all the way to the Supreme Court, where they will argue that Humphrey’s Executor is distinguishable and that Board members do exercise executive authority and should therefore be in line with Presidential policies.
Trump fires US labor board member, hobbling agency amid legal battles
January 28, 2025 // As a board member, Wilcox voted to bar employers from holding mandatory anti-union meetings, to create a new path for unions to represent workers outside of the decades-old election process, and to make it easier to require companies to bargain with contract and franchise workers. Abruzzo in a statement said the board's efforts to empower workers in recent years would have a lasting impact. "So, if the Agency does not fully effectuate its congressional mandate in the future as we did during my tenure, I expect that workers with assistance from their advocates will take matters into their own hands," she said.
Schumer moves to lock in place Democrat-majority labor board
December 11, 2024 // Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is attempting to ensure that the Democrats retain control of the National Labor Relations Board, the main federal labor law enforcement agency, until at least 2026 by extending the term of its current chairwoman, Lauren McFerran. A Senate floor vote on McFerran’s nomination is pending and, while it is possible that Senate Republicans could block it, it is not clear if enough will show up for the vote to do that. The vote may happen on Wednesday. This matters because the current board has been an aggressive advocate for unionization.