Since his arrival at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Peter Robb has pushed various initiatives to streamline processes at the agency. Those efforts appear to be paying off based on a new press release from the NLRB on its case handling statistics for its most recent fiscal year. 

According to the press release:

“The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reported improved case processing statistics for FY 2019. The results reflect a renewed focus on more-timely processing of cases, which is part of the Agency’s strategic plan goals. The Board issued 303 decisions in contested cases during FY 2019. Adopting a case processing pilot program, the Board committed itself to expediting cases in order to better serve the parties and the American public. Under the program, there was particular focus on issuing decisions in some of the oldest cases. As a result, the median age of all cases pending before the Board was reduced from 233 days in FY 2018 to 157 days at the end of FY 2019, an almost 33% reduction. In addition, the Board significantly reduced the number of cases pending before the Board to its lowest level since 2012.  As of the end of FY2019, the number of pending cases was reduced from 281 at the end of FY 2018 to 227 currently, a reduction of almost 20%. During the same time period, the Regional Offices made exceptional strides to meet our strategic goal to reduce case processing time by 20% over four years. In just one year, the Regions overall nearly met our four-year goal by reducing the time of filing to disposition of unfair labor practice cases from 90 to 74 days, a decrease of 17.5%.”

The NLRB’s efforts to reduce its backlog are paying off, but this also means parties appearing before the agency are seeking quicker and more strictly enforced deadlines in their cases. Given the NLRB appears poised to continue this push, companies can expect that trend to continue.