Posts tagged union elections
US judge blocks labor board’s Trump-era move to take control over union elections
July 1, 2026 // A federal judge on Monday blocked the U.S. agency that oversees union elections for federal employees from shifting authority over all labor representation decisions to its top body, which is dominated by Republicans appointed by President Donald Trump. Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston sided with, opens new tabeight unions who had sued to prevent the Federal Labor Relations Authority from stripping its regional directors of their decades-old power to decide cases themselves by having its three-member body of presidential appointees handle all of them.
Trump Gives Teamsters a Chance to Shed Oversight Meant to Curb Mob Ties
June 25, 2026 // Sean M. O’Brien, re-elected to a second term leading the union, has used a relationship with President Trump to end court-ordered corruption monitoring.
Coalition to Protect American Workers and I4AW’s Michael Alcorn: Petition for Rulemaking — Blocking Charges in Representation Proceedings
June 17, 2026 // The requested rule is straightforward: unfair labor practice charges should not postpone elections, dismiss petitions, or indefinitely prevent employees from voting on whether they wish to be represented by a labor organization. The Board should require elections to proceed promptly; eliminate merit-determination dismissals and other regional workarounds based on unadjudicated charges; permit temporary ballot impoundment only by written Board order under a demanding standard; and require the Board to act on any regional impoundment request within 30 days. If the Board does not issue an impoundment order within that period, the case should return to the Region and the ballots should be opened and counted.
Penn State faculty vote to unionize in one of Pennsylvania’s largest union elections
May 16, 2026 // With the election decided, the next major step will be negotiating a first union contract between Penn State faculty and the university. Organizers say they hope the agreement will address workplace conditions, faculty voice in governance and support for the university’s academic mission. SEIU Local 668 represents about 25,000 public-sector workers across Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. This comes as the university moves forward with plans to close several branch campuses, including Penn State York and Penn State Mont Alto.
FLRA to boost political involvement in federal union representation cases
March 30, 2026 // The Federal Labor Relations Authority issued a pair of interim final rules on Tuesday, revising its internal operations for how it processes the labor-management cases. Once the rules take effect next month, the FLRA’s three-member board of political appointees will become involved in initial decisions on amending bargaining units, overseeing union elections and certifying new union chapters. That initial process is currently designated to regional directors — career federal employees — from FLRA’s Office of General Counsel.
Editorial Board: In defense of the secret ballot
March 15, 2026 // In the case decided by the 6th Circuit, Brown-Forman challenged the basis for the NLRB’s Cemex ruling and won. The supposedly unfair labor practice committed at its Woodford Reserve bourbon distillery was giving workers a $4-per-hour raise, expanding merit-based salary increases, offering more vacation time and providing free bottles of bourbon. The employees voted 45-14 against unionizing, but the NLRB ordered the company to bargain with that union anyway. The advantage of secret-ballot elections is that workers are free of coercion by unions or employers when deciding whether they wish to unionize. It also ensures that their decisions are anonymous, so they won’t fear retaliation or harassment by aggressive union organizers or the people who pay their salaries. A secret ballot is far more likely to reflect their true views.
Sixth Circuit Dumps NLRB’s Cemex Ruling to Police Elections
March 9, 2026 // Beyond negating Cemex in the Sixth Circuit, the court’s decision strikes a blow at the NLRB’s fundamental authority to set national labor policy through individual case rulings. While the board is expected to overturn Cemex after its Republican majority gets a crucial third member, the current members recently emphasized their preference for setting policy through case adjudication rather than rarely used rulemaking power. Under Cemex, the NLRB can impose a bargaining order when an employer that was presented with a valid demand for union recognition commits unfair labor practices in the runup to a vote.
Unionizing Set to Fall Due to Economic, Political Headwinds
February 3, 2026 // The number of union elections fell to 1,372 last year, down from 1,938 in 2024. That’s the fewest elections since 2021, a review of National Labor Relations Board data found. Union wins also sank by nearly 27% in 2025 compared to 2024, the first downturn since 2020. That drop in election wins led to the number of new workers organized via NLRB elections to fall nearly 40% year-over-over to just 65,542 workers in 2025, according to the data. Organized labor saw a post-pandemic boom after decades of union membership decline. But new economic and political headwinds, including a more management-friendly NLRB and a cooling jobs market, look likely to reverse that trend.
Opinion: The Senate can stop the NLRB’s threats to American freedom
December 8, 2025 // Trump’s nominees will restore the balance and discipline needed to repair the NLRB’s legitimacy and credibility with American workers. They understand that the NLRB’s role is not to pick winners and losers, but to protect workers’ rights and uphold secret ballots, as well as ensure union accountability and that information is not hidden from workers. Confirming them would restore the constitutional guardrails that keep government honest and workplaces free.
Congress Can Empower Workers Through Choice—Not Coercion
November 24, 2025 // A case in point is the legislative package that Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) introduced on Nov. 10, joined by others including Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C). They’d protect workers’ paychecks by requiring unions to get approval before spending dues money on politics. They’d also protect workers’ privacy by letting them choose what contact information unions get during the organizing process. And they’d protect workplace democracy by requiring that at least two-thirds of workers participate in union elections — preventing a minority of people from determining the fate of every employee. Another praiseworthy reform is the Employee Rights Act, which Scott introduced in the shutdown’s early days after Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) previously introduced it in the House. Among its many good ideas, the Employee Rights Act guarantees the secret ballot and protects workers from intimidation and harassment. It also gives unionized workers in the 26 right-to-work states the freedom to negotiate their own contract with their employer, so they can better address their individual needs. And the Employee Rights Act guarantees that self-employed workers have maximum flexibility to design their jobs to fit their lives.