The Current Union Organizing Wave Is Being Held Back by an Underfunded NLRB
We're in the midst of an uptick in union organizing in the US. But that organizing can't turn into permanent gains for workers without a functioning National Labor Relations Board. And the board is suffering from a severe underfunding crisis.
Barista Brick Zurek stands in front of the Starbucks on Wabash Avenue, downtown Chicago, the first in the city to file for union representation with the National Labor Relations Board. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
The budget for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for fiscal year 2022 was $274 million, which might sound like a lot of money. But it is the same amount as the Board’s budget for Trump-era fiscal years 2021 and 2020, and that is a problem.
In fact, the NLRB has not had an increase in funding since 2014, the year that the Republicans took control of Congress during the Obama administration and reignited their decades-old campaign to deep-six workers’ rights to unionize.
No increase “means a cut to the agency’s funds, due to inflation and other factors,” explains Burt Pearlstone, president of the NLRBU, the union representing workers at the agency.
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