The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reported that union election petitions filed with the agency rose 27% in fiscal year 2024 over the same period in fiscal year 2023. The NLRB has jurisdiction over private employers whose businesses are engaged in interstate commerce. While the percentage of union workers in the US has been in a general decline over the past decade, employees apparently have a newfound need for the protections which union representation and union contracts can provide.
This increased workload for the employees of the NLRB has come at a time when funding for the agency has been in decline along with the fact that staffing in its offices around the country has been reduced by half. Funding for the agency had been frozen for close to ten years until the Biden Administration was able to increase its funding by $25 million in fiscal year 2023. Despite this recent increase, funding was frozen for fiscal year 2024.
It is expected that the incoming Trump Administration will either continue the freeze in funding or seek to reduce funding. This, likely, will result in impediments to the agency’s ability to promptly process election petitions and charges of unfair practices, likely hampering future unionization efforts.