On August 25, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a decision that significantly narrows employers’ options in contesting union organizing efforts through secret ballot elections. The case, Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, reverses the NLRB’s 1971 Linden Lumber decision, which gave employers the right to decline to recognize a union based on authorization cards alone and instead insist on an NLRB-supervised, secret ballot election. Employers will need to rewrite their playbooks for responding to organizing campaigns.
