363 N.L.R.B. 931; 2016 NLRB LEXIS 58; 205 L.R.R.M. 1513; 2016-17 NLRB Dec. (CCH) P16,093; 363 NLRB No. 103

363 N.L.R.B. 931; 2016 NLRB LEXIS 58; 205 L.R.R.M. 1513; 2016-17 NLRB Dec. (CCH) P16,093; 363 NLRB No. 103

Opinion

 [*931]  DECISION AND ORDER

The National Labor Relations Board has considered the Employer's objections to a mail ballot election held January 28, 2015, through February 11, 2015, and the Regional Director's report recommending disposition of them. ¹ The election was conducted pursuant to a Stipulated Election Agreement. The tally of ballots shows 11 for and 2 against Petitioner, with 2 void ballots and 0 challenged ballots.

 [**2]  

The Board has reviewed the record in light of the exceptions and briefs and has adopted the Regional Director's findings and recommendations, as further discussed below.

The Employer's Objection 2 alleges that the Employer was improperly prohibited from holding a mass campaign meeting--routinely called a "captive-audience meeting"--with employees on the morning the ballots were to be mailed. This raises the issue of when the captive-audience speech prohibition begins in mail ballot elections. We agree with the Regional Director's decision to overrule the objection, but we do not rely on his rationale.

As the facts here illustrate, the Board's existing rule with respect to the mass captive-audience meeting prohibition in mail ballot elections has been a source of confusion. In Peerless Plywood Co., 107 NLRB 427, 429 (1953), the Board prohibited mass captive-audience speeches by parties within the 24-hour period prior to the start of a manual election. Although it is modeled on Peerless Plywood, the mail-ballot rule at issue here, adopted in Oregon Washington Telephone Co., 123 NLRB 339 (1959), does not begin the mass-meeting prohibition 24 [**3]  hours before the ballots are scheduled to be mailed--the point that seems to correspond most naturally to the Peerless Plywood rule. Instead, Oregon Washington Telephone holds that the prohibition begins when the ballots are scheduled to be mailed by the Regional Office (as opposed to 24 hours before). Predictably, this counter-intuitive difference between the mail-ballot rule and the manual-election rule of Peerless Plywood invites confusion. To avoid perpetuating that confusion, we have decided to overrule Oregon Washington Telephone and to align the mail-ballot rule more closely with the manual-ballot rule.

Facts

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