By Nelson Cary and Lauren Sanders
Labor professionals waiting for the new rule on certain employee free choice issues to go into effect will have to wait a little longer. The NLRB announced on Wednesday that it is delaying the effective date of this rule for 60 days, until July 31, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NLRB published the election rule on April 1, 2020. The rule was originally scheduled to go into effect on June 1, 2020. As we previously explained, the election rule will eliminate the longstanding practice that a ULP charge will “block” the election (that is, prevent it from going forward). The rule will also require employers who voluntarily recognize a labor union to notify employees of the recognition and will change the standard for recognizing unions in the construction industry. The NLRB has stated that it believes that these amendments would better protect employees’ statutory right of free choice concerning union representation.
The two-month delay in implementing the election rule provides just one more example of how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the NLRB’s operations. In addition to delaying the election rule, the pandemic caused the NLRB to close or partially close regional offices and to suspend union elections for two weeks.