Guardsmark, LLC  (05-RC-143199; 363 NLRB No. 103)  Washington, DC, January 29, 2016.

A full-Board majority consisting of Chairman Pearce and Members Hirozawa and McFerran adopted the Regional Director’s recommendation to overrule the Employer’s objection (Objection 2) alleging that it was improperly prohibited from holding a mass campaign meeting on the morning ballots were scheduled to be mailed in a mail ballot election.  The Board majority overruled Oregon Washington Telephone, 123 NLRB 339 (1959), which held that the mass-meeting prohibition begins when the ballots are scheduled to be mailed by the Regional Office (as opposed to beginning 24 hours before).  The Board majority found that prohibiting mass, captive-audience speeches by parties within the 24-hour period prior to the mailing of the ballots would align the mail-ballot rule more closely with the manual-ballot rule established in Peerless Plywood Co., 107 NLRB 427, 429 (1953), in which the Board prohibited such speeches within the 24-hour period prior to the start of a manual election.  Member Miscimarra, dissenting, would not overrule Oregon Washington Telephone; he found that the rule adopted by the majority creates different standards—one applicable to mail-ballot elections, the other to manual elections—that cannot be reconciled with one another or with Peerless Plywood.  Petitioner—International Union, Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA).  Chairman Pearce and Members Miscimarra, Hirozawa, and McFerran participated.