Former NLRB Members Collaborate on Briefs Regarding Union Organizing Tactics and Neutrality Card-Check Agreements

Butzel Long attorney and former NLRB Member John Raudabaugh assists in development of briefings

DETROIT, July 20 -- For the first time in U.S. labor history, three former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Members filed unprecedented briefs regarding union organizing through neutrality card-check agreements and voluntary agreements.

One brief was filed on behalf of 21 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives including the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations, and the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections.

The other brief was filed on behalf of the Automotive Aftermarket Suppliers Association, Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association, Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association, Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the Original Equipment Suppliers Association. These associations represent more than 7,200 companies employing more than 2.5 million employees.

The briefs consider whether an agreement reached between an employer and a union regarding card-check voluntary recognition before authorization cards are obtained evidencing majority status should bar an employee's decertification petition for a reasonable period of time. The briefs were filed with the NLRB pursuant to the Board's June 14, 2004 notice inviting interested amici to file briefs on or before July 15, 2004.

The briefs argue there should be no voluntary recognition bar or, alternatively, there should be a notice to employees and an opportunity to petition for a decertification election to "test" the act of extending voluntary recognition, or there should be a prohibition against recognizing a union where an agreement between the union and an employer precedes the union's solicitation of employee signatures.

"Never before in the 69-year history of the National Labor Relations Board's oversight of federal labor law has there been collaboration by multiple former Board Members in contributing their studied opinions on issues of fundamental labor policy," said John Raudabaugh, an attorney with the Detroit law firm of Butzel Long and a former NLRB member. "Given the political environment reflected by proposed legislation in both the U.S. Senate and House, the efforts by some few employers and unions generally to bypass employee free choice, it is fundamentally important that the voices of experienced counsel and former adjudicators be heard to add their considered commentary to the ongoing debate."

Full text copies of the briefs can be found on the Butzel Long website at http://www.butzel.com/ .

Butzel Long was established in 1854 and is headquartered in Detroit. Butzel Long is one of Michigan's oldest and largest law firms, with more than 200 attorneys and offices in Detroit, Bloomfield Hills, Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Holland, Mich., Naples and Boca Raton, Fla., and Alliance offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China. The firm represents clients from diverse industries on a regional, national and multi-national level and is the sole Michigan member of Lex Mundi, a global association of 161 independent law firms.