NLRB Announces Agency-wide Telework Until April 1

In response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the National Labor Relations Board will implement Agency-wide telework. Effective immediately until at least April 1, 2020, all employees, other than minimal staffing, as needed to handle mail, have been directed to telework.

The Agency will continue operations and enforcing the National Labor Relations Act and is taking measures to keep its employees and the public safe. To that end, the Agency implemented mandatory telework for its Headquarters employees last week due to a potential coronavirus exposure at its Headquarters office and implemented mandatory telework at and temporarily closed its Manhattan (Region 2), Detroit (Region 7) and Chicago (Region 13) offices today, while an employee in each of those offices is tested for the coronavirus.

All other Agency Regional Offices will remain open to the public and will continue to handle in-coming and out-going mail. To permit the public’s continued access to the Agency while minimizing health risks to Agency employees and the public, the Agency has decided to keep field offices (other than Manhattan, Detroit and Chicago) open to the public during non-rush hour weekday periods from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Information Officer duties in our regional offices should be completed by telephone or electronic means.

Service of all Board and Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) decisions and orders on parties will be done via E-Service. The Agency’s E-Service program has been successfully delivering Board and ALJ decisions to parties via email since 2008. The E-Service program has been limited, however, to those parties who have registered for E-Service. During this mandatory telework period for our headquarters offices, we will serve Board and ALJ decisions exclusively through E-Service. Legal representatives and parties to cases currently pending before the NLRB are strongly encouraged to sign up to receive service from the Agency via E-Service. Those who sign up for E-Service will receive documents from the Agency by email rather than by hard copies sent through the mail. Parties can request to receive E-Service by sending an email to e-Service@nlrb.gov.

During this time, the Agency will temporarily close the following small resident offices: Little Rock, Arkansas, San Antonio, Texas, San Diego, California, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Agency leadership will continue to monitor this evolving situation on an ongoing basis, and we will provide additional information as it becomes available.

Established in 1935, the National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency that protects employees, employers, and unions from unfair labor practices and protects the right of private sector employees to join together, with or without a union, to improve wages, benefits and working conditions. The NLRB conducts hundreds of workplace elections and investigates thousands of unfair labor practice charges each year.

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