Correspondence

  
The Honorable Mark G. Pearce
Chairman
National Labor Relations Board
1099 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20570

Dear Chairman Pearce:

In its 2007 Dana Corp. decision,  the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) provided workers and rival unions 45-days in which to demand a secret-ballot election when their employer voluntarily recognized a union.  According to the most recent statistics, the NLRB has received 1,333 requests for voluntary recognition since its Dana decision. In response to these requests, 102 election petitions were filed, and 62 elections were conducted.   In more than 25 percent of those secret-ballot elections, employees rejected the voluntarily recognized union, including two elections in which a different union was selected over the union recognized by the employer. 
 
Despite the success of the Dana holding in ensuring employee free choice, the board recently decided to roll back the decision and the protections it provided workers.  Now workers may have to wait up to four years to cast a secret ballot in an election intended to challenge an employer recognized union. It is impossible to conceive how restricting workers’ access to a secret ballot furthers the board’s mission to safeguard the rights of employees.

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