At the Omaha networking luncheon Kelly Ekeler an attorney with Harding & Shultz presented what she had learned at the recent ABC Attorney’s Conference.  Besides the federal legislation to ban public PLA’s she reviewed information about the latest NRLB regulations.

The topics covered the NRLB’s poster rule that every business is supposed to display effective April 30 and the ABC recommended companion poster that can be placed along side of the NRLB poster.  The companion poster reminds employees of their right to choose to not belong to a labor union.  She reviewed changes to the “persuader rule” and set to go into effect at the end of April are regulations often referred to as “Ambush Lite”.  These new proposed regulations appeared last summer when it was obvious that Card Check legislation was dead.  The NRLB has issued the final regulations concerning having a union certifying election.  It is estimated that these changes will shrink the timeframe in half for an election down to approximately 20 days or less. These rules won praise from union leaders, where business groups claim they allow "ambush elections" that won't give employers enough time to talk to employees about whether to choose a union.  Kelly also went into the details of the “illegal” appointments made by Obama to bring the NRLB board back to five members.

Apparently there is even more in store according to the new chair of the NRLB.  In an article by Sam Hananel of the Associated Press posted on January 25, the new Chairman of the NRLB Mark Pearce said…"We keep our eye on the prize," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.  "Our goal is to create a set of rules that eliminate a lot of waste of time, energy and moneyfor the taxpayers."  One change Pearce wants is requiring businesses to hand over lists of employee phone numbers and emails to union leaders before an election.  He also wants the board to consider other rule changes it didn't have time to approve before it lost a quorum last year. They include the use of electronic filings and quicker timetables for certain procedures.  Watch for this to become a bigger issue as elections near.

On another note the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its annual Union Members Summary report.  It reveled from 2010 to 2011, union membership grew from 13.1 percent to 14 percent of the U.S. private construction workforce, with construction unions adding 73,000 more union members compared to last year.  From 2010 to 2011, the construction industry added 141,000 jobs and grew from 6,103,000 workers to 6,244,000 workers.  It is unclear why/how unions added 73,000 new members since last year’s report considering the economy and the overall decline in unions in the private sector across all industries.  There are many possible political and economic explanations.  However, please keep in mind that this is the second lowest number of union workers in the construction industry since the BLS started tracking data (2010 was the lowest).