IFPTE Urges Congress to Stop NLRB's Secret Regional Office Reorganization

August 19, 2020

Hon. Patty Murray, Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services, Education, & Related Agencies,
Senate Appropriations Committee
154 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Hon. Rosa DeLauro, Chairwoman
Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services, Education & Related Agencies,
House Appropriations Committee
2413 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515


Dear Chairwoman DeLauro & Ranking Senator Murray:

As executive officers of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), representing upwards of 85,000 members, we are writing to ask you to stop the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) plan to reorganize and consolidate the NLRB Western Regional Offices.

We are appreciative of the concerns raised in your August 6th letters to NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb and NLRB Chairman John Ring and we fully support your calls to suspend the reorganization and consolidation plan until the NLRB has provided full transparency and information. Considering the adverse impact this plan would have on workers’ rights, we request that you use your power as appropriators to deny funding to the NLRB for this reorganization in the final Fiscal Year 2021 Labor/HHS appropriations bill. To provide immediate relief, we also request that you work to include an anomaly blocking the plan’s implementation in the Continuing Resolution expected to be considered by Congress in September.

Were this plan to be implemented, the reorganization would harm working people’s rights to engage in protected concerted activities that are enshrined in the National Labor Relations Act. By removing case management responsibilities from Regional Directors and consolidating and delegating those functions to a rotating case-assignment officer, the familiarity and local knowledge of the Western Regional Directors and Regional Office staff will at best go underutilized. At minimum, this plan will undermine the ability of the Western Regional Offices to identify and respond to ongoing issues and disputes in regional industries. That the NLRB may implement such a plan without providing a proper account to Congressional committees of jurisdiction and forgo the federal rulemaking process raises serious concerns regarding the NLRB’s intentions.

While there are a number of outstanding questions that remain to be answered by General Counsel Robb and Chairman Ring, we urge you to deny funding for the NLRB’s plan in order to protect the operational capacity of the NLRB Western Regional Offices, safeguard the competencies and expertise of the staff at the NLRB, and ensure that the NLRB’s unaccountable process does not harm, delay, or diminish workers’ statutory collective bargaining rights nor delay investigations and findings on alleged violations of the National Labor Relations Act.

Thank you for your leadership on providing accountability for the NLRB. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call IFPTE Legislative Representative Faraz Khan at 301-275-6038.

Sincerely,

Paul Shearon,
President

Matthew Biggs,
Secretary-Treasurer/Legislative Director

IFPTE Letter to Congressional Appropriators to Defund the NLRB