January 2009 NLRB Activity (Election) Report

January was a light month for the NLRB. I thought maybe it had to do with being “January”, so I researched the last few years and found this not to be the case. Historically, January elections have been double what occurred in 2009. The union win-rate was down also (just under 57%).  Thinking through this, maybe organized labor believes they have the Employee Free Choice Act in the bag and don’t want to waste the time and resources on taking campaigns to elections. Let EFCA pass and any campaigns with sufficient cards give them “instant” members. If EFCA is modified and the “card check” is dropped from the bill, it will likely be replaced with a significantly reduced post-petition campaign - election period of as little as 7 days. If this happens, you would still have a much better chance of a win by waiting.  It will be interesting to watch the next few months activity to see if the trend continues.  Another thought on this.  One of the cries of labor is it’s an unfair playing field. That’s hard to justify when your winning 60 - 65% of your elections as they’ve done over the past few years.  So you intentionally reduce the number of elections held, and if you’re really brave you run a few that you know you’ll lose. It’s a gamble, but the payoff is huge.

Here’s the link for the January 2009 report.  Click Here.  You make up your own mind.