Misleading: Employers are Charged with Breaking Federal Labor Law in 4 of 10 Union Elections

I recently read an article that, while truthful, seems misleading to me. The headline read: Employers are Charged with Breaking Federal Labor Law in 4 of 10 Union Elections

A charge is not a conviction. Unions file unfair labor practice charges for many different reasons – even when they know there is no merit to the charge. Charges are sometimes filed to block an election, to convince employees that the union is fighting for them, to make life expensive and difficult for employers, and many other reasons.

Unions file charges against my clients in almost all of the elections I handle, but those charges are usually dismissed after a finding of no merit.

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) – the same group that thinks 60 million people would vote to be in a union tomorrow if they could – employers are charged with breaking the law in 39% of union elections filed with the NLRB between 2019 and 2022.

In elections with a unit of more than 50 employees, employers were charged with breaking the law nearly 50% of the time, per the article.

The article also says that employers were charged with acting unlawfully in over 40% of the 3,200+ union elections conducted between 2016 and 2017.

Glaringly absent from the article, though, is the outcome of those charges: dismissed; settled; meritorious? Anyone can file a charge alleging anything.

If the top number is that charges are filed in 40% of elections, the number of meritorious charges must be substantially less. I don’t know the statistic, but it is probably less than 25%, maybe even less than 10%.

That doesn’t make headlines, though. “Employers Violate the Law in Less than 10% of Union Elections” doesn’t get clicks.