A comprehensive government spending deal reached in the Senate early Tuesday would bring a much-needed funding boost to the agency that oversees private-sector collective bargaining.
Unions have spent the past few weeks lobbying lawmakers to direct more money to the National Labor Relations Board, which organizes union elections and investigates unfair labor practices. The agency’s leaders recently said its financial situation has become so dire that it will have to lay off employees, jeopardizing its mission to protect workers’ rights.
But the Senate’s new framework for an omnibus spending bill would increase NLRB funding to $299 million, an increase of $25 million annually. The agency’s funding has stagnated at $274 million since 2014, meaning its funding has declined in real dollars.
General Council of the Labor Committee recently said HuffPost that the agency’s work had become “unsustainable” because of fixed funding. Meanwhile, unions feared that an ill-equipped board could threaten recent organizational successes, leaving employers in the trap of illegal unionization.
Organized labor has had a number of breakthroughs in the past year — unionizing workers for the first time at Amazon, Starbucks, Apple and Trader Joe’s, to name a few — and workers are seeking union elections at a rate unprecedented in years.
“Unions fear an ill-equipped board could threaten recent organizational successes by leaving employers in the trap of illegal unionization.”
The agency struggled to keep up due to attrition. The total number of NLRB employees has dropped by 30% since 2010, from 1,733 full-time employees to just 1,207. Most of those cuts fell on regional offices that conduct elections and look into allegations that employers or unions have broken the law.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO union federation, said Tuesday that funding the works council is a “workers’ rights issue.”
“For any employee who has experienced retaliation, harassment or surveillance for simply wanting to join a union, strengthening the NLRB will make a difference,” Shuler said on Twitter.
Although increased funding would be welcome, many feel it is still not enough. The council requested $319 million in funding this year, $20 million more than the Senate was willing to provide.
A group of progressive lawmakers recently called for a much higher level of NLRB funding — $368 million — but Republicans have opposed any increase for years.
Business groups recently lobbied lawmakers not to increase funding for the NLRB, arguing that it targets small businesses.
Republicans and business lobbies have attacked the board over the years for aggressively enforcing workers’ rights, usually under Democratic presidents. Biden has made appointments that have reshaped the NLRB to be more worker- and union-friendly, a move that is sure to attract the attention of the incoming Republican majority in the House.
After the Senate released details of its agreement, the union that represents the agency’s staff he posted on Twitter Tuesday morning, that the “national nightmare” could come to an end: “If approved by both chambers, the funding Armageddon we warned of has been averted, at least this year.”
Funding for the NLRB is actually just a few peanuts from the Senate’s omnibus package, which includes $858 billion for the military and $772 billion for national programs. The deal still needs approval in the House, where Democrats hold a slim majority, before Republicans take over next month.
Lawmakers must approve the omnibus spending deal or a short-term resolution by Friday or face a government shutdown.
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