From MEMA Industry News

The Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) has joined 41 other associations led by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in an amicus brief submitted to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The brief responds to NLRB’s request for advice on its 2007 decision in a card check related case.

In Dana Corp., in a 3-2 vote, NLRB ruled that employees must have 45 days after their employer recognizes a union based on card-check authorizations to file a petition to decertify the union or to support an election petition from another union. The board emphasized a secret election as the preferred method to determine the status of a union. The majority in the 2007 case found that card-check procedures are much less reliable as indicators of employee free choice on union representation than secret elections.

The current board, however, is reconsidering that ruling. The amicus brief submitted by NAM argues that Dana should not be overruled and that the 45-day window should not be eliminated, stating that individual free choice regarding whether to be represented at all by a third party is a necessary precondition to any collective negotiation.

The brief also argues that without a card-check review process in the form of a secret election, "employees are left . . . with the likelihood of peer pressure and/or coercion, lack of information, no measurement of unit-wide employee sentiment at the same point in time, and no assurance that the alleged, resulting majority is an accurate reflection of free choice."