Continuing its reshaping of its election rules, policies, and procedures, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has proposed two new amendments to the policies and procedures governing its elections. The changes will be published on July 29, 2020, in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register.

Under the so-called 2014 “quickie election rules” promulgated by the Obama-era NLRB, employers were required to provide unions that filed petitions to represent their employees available personal email addresses and available home and personal cell phone numbers of eligible voters. (Employers had been required to provide employee names and addresses since 1966.) The proposed rule provides that this requirement be eliminated. The NLRB states that the proposed rule “will advance important employee privacy interests that the current rules do not sufficiently protect.”

Long-standing NLRB policy does not provide for absentee ballots, even for employees who are on military leave. The NLRB proposes to provide absentee ballots for employees on military leave and to create a procedure to do so “without impeding the expeditious resolution of representation elections.”

Public comments must be submitted within 60 days of the NPRM’s publication in the Federal Register. Comments may be submitted electronically at www.regulations.gov, or by mail or hand-delivery to Roxanne Rothschild, Executive Secretary, National Labor Relations Board, 1015 Half Street S.E., Washington, D.C. 20570-0001. The NLRB recommends that comments be submitted electronically or by mail rather than by hand delivery because of the COVID-19 pandemic.