NLRB Ratifies Pre-Noel Canning Actions
Although many suspected that the Supreme Court would invalidate all actions taken by the National Labor Relations Board in Noel Canning v. NLRB, the question remained just how many of the NLRB’s actions would stand. To this day, the NLRB’s decisions from January 4, 2012 to August 5, 2013 have no legal effect. That includes the NLRB’s revolutionary decisions on social media, employee handbooks, arbitration agreements and internal investigations in non-union workplaces.
Today, the NLRB took a small action to ensure that administrative actions it had taken while it was not properly constituted have legal effect. In Minutes of a meeting of all members, the NLRB unanimously ratified the appointment of various Regional Directors (including Region 31 covering Los Angeles and southern California) and ALJ’s. immediately following the Noel Canning decisions, employers in regions with newly appointed Regional Directors had begun to argue that the Region lacked power to prosecute ULP charges or to oversee elections because the Regional Director had not been properly appointed. This action seemingly eliminates that argument.