There were 1687 elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board in FY 2015 and unions won 66% of them overall, according to a report issued by the federal agency.
When it came to elections involving employees choosing union representation, unions won 69% of the 1490 elections involving a total of 91,874 employees.
However, in 174 union decertification elections, employees chose to rid themselves of union representation 59% of the time.
The total number of elections in FY 2015 increased from FY 2014 (1453) by 14% and all of that increase came from the number of petitions filed to bring a union into a company—from 1260 to 1490.
Despite the changes in the NLRB’s election process in April to shorten election time frames, as well as the greater number of petitions, it does not appear that unions have taken much advantage NLRB’s changes yet.
While union win rates increased slightly in certification elections (from 68% to 69%), and the number of elections have increased, the increases have not resulted in large membership gains.
In 2014, for example, 85,530 voted in elections to bring a union into their workplace; where as, in 2016—with the NLRB’s changes in place for half of the reporting year—the number of employees voted in election to bring a union increased by only 6,344.
Add comment