National Labor Relations Board reports 10 percent increase in cases in fiscal year 2023

The National Labor Relations Board saw increases in fiscal year 2023 in unfair labor practice charges and union-representation petitions.

This according to an annual report released this week by the NLRB, which showed a total of 22,448 cases filed with the agency all told in the fiscal year, an increase of 10 percent over fiscal year 2022.

The bulk of the cases handled by the agency involved allegiations of unfair labor practices – 19,854 of those cases were brought to the board in the Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023, fiscal year.

During the same period, 2,594 union representation petitions were filed, a 3 percent increase over FY 2022. This uptick in filings builds on last fiscal year’s dramatic surge in representation-related activity and represents the highest number filed since FY 2015.

In FY 2022, 2,510 union representation petitions were filed, a 53 percent increase from the 1,638 petitions field in FY 2021.

The report notes that the increased workload comes as the NLRB continues to deal with funding and staffing shortages. In December 2022, Congress gave the NLRB a $25 million increase for FY 2023, ending a hiring moratorium, preventing furloughs, and allowing the NLRB to backfill some critical staff vacancies.

The board remains understaffed after almost a decade of flat funding. In the past two decades, staffing in field offices has shrunk by 50 percent.

“Dedicated NLRB employees have continued working hard to increase the board’s productivity, but the continuing surge in case intake has again increased our year-end backlog,” Chairman Lauren McFerran said. “Although the agency tremendously appreciated the $25 million increase in funding for FY 2023, and used every extra dollar to address critical staffing vacancies and infrastructure needs, additional resources are necessary to enable the board to expand staffing capacity and continue processing cases more efficiently.”

“Our committed and talented NLRB career employees continue to process cases with professionalism and care,” said General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. “The president’s budget requests $376 million for the Agency, which is much needed to effectively and efficiently comply with our congressional mandate when providing quality service promptly to the public in conducting hearings and elections, investigating charges, settling and litigating meritorious cases, and obtaining full and prompt remedies for workers whose rights are violated.”