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About NLRB

About NLRB

Election-related content

The Board will set aside an election if a party to the election (or, in rare cases, a third party) commits objectionable conduct that may have affected the outcome. Unfair labor practices, such as those described in the app page about coercing employees, are objectionable. In addition, conduct that is not an unfair labor practice may invalidate an election if it impermissibly interferes with employees' ability to freely choose whether to be represented by a union or which union to designate as a representative. For example, the Board may set aside an election, even if you have not engaged in any unfair labor practices, if you

  • Make untruthful campaign statements using forged documents that leave employees unable to recognize election propaganda for what it is.
  • Alter an official Board document to make it look like the Board favors a particular outcome.
  • Engage in excessive electioneering at or near the polls.
  • Engage in prolonged conversations with employees waiting in line to vote, regardless of the subject.
  • Keep a list of employees who have voted.
  • Make irrelevant, inflammatory, and sustained appeals to ethnic or racial prejudice.
  • Make an election speech to a massed assembly of employees (such as by using a sound truck to broadcast a message to employees at their workplace) within 24 hours of the election.
  • Conduct a raffle within 24 hours of the election if eligibility to participate in the raffle is tied to voting or being at the election site on election day.
  • Grant employees a benefit, or promise them a significant benefit it is within your power to confer.
  • Waive initiation fees for employees who join the union or sign an authorization card before the election. (You may waive initiation fees, provided the waiver is not contingent on pre-election support or a commitment to vote in your favor.)
  • Photograph or videotape employees engaged in Section 7 activity, unless you have a legitimate reason to do so and have timely communicated that reason to the employees (unless it's self-evident).