Title: Representation Fairness Restoration Act
Policy area: Labor and Employment

Summary:
Representation Fairness Restoration Act
This bill amends the National Labor Relations Act to replace the current legal standard for determining the appropriateness of a collective bargaining unit. Under a 2011 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Mobile, the NLRB must approve a requested bargaining unit unless an employer can show that an overwhelming community of interest exists between the requested unit and some other portion of the workforce, thus allowing the formation of smaller bargaining units (i.e., micro-bargaining units). This bill requires the NLRB to determine a unit appropriate for collective bargaining if it consists of employees who share a sufficient community of interest and sets forth factors for the NLRB to consider in determining whether employees share a sufficient community of interest.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1217 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1217

 To amend the National Labor Relations Act to provide for appropriate 
              designation of collective bargaining units.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 24, 2017

 Mr. Isakson (for himself, Mr. Alexander, Mr. Corker, Mr. Cornyn, Mr. 
 Hatch, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Perdue, Mr. Risch, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Scott, 
 Mr. Wicker, and Mr. Boozman) introduced the following bill; which was 
 read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
                              and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the National Labor Relations Act to provide for appropriate 
              designation of collective bargaining units.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Representation Fairness Restoration 
Act''.

SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT.

    Section 9(b) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. 159(b)) 
is amended to read as follows:
    ``(b) In each case, prior to an election, the Board shall 
determine, in order to ensure to employees the fullest freedom in 
exercising the rights guaranteed by this Act, the unit appropriate for 
the purposes of collective bargaining. Unless otherwise stated in this 
Act, excluding acute health care facilities, the unit appropriate for 
purposes of collective bargaining shall consist of employees that share 
a sufficient community of interest. In determining whether employees 
share a sufficient community of interest, the Board shall consider (1) 
similarity of wages, benefits, and working conditions; (2) similarity 
of skills and training; (3) centrality of management and common 
supervision; (4) extent of interchange and frequency of contact between 
employees; (5) integration of the work flow and interrelationship of 
the production process; (6) the consistency of the unit with the 
employer's organizational structure; (7) similarity of job functions 
and work; and (8) the bargaining history in the particular unit and the 
industry. To avoid the proliferation or fragmentation of bargaining 
units, employees shall not be excluded from the unit unless the 
interests of the group sought are sufficiently distinct from those of 
other employees to warrant the establishment of a separate unit. 
Whether additional employees should be included in a proposed unit 
shall be based on whether such additional employees and proposed unit 
members share a sufficient community of interest, with the exception of 
proposed accretions to an existing unit, in which the inclusion of 
additional employees shall be based on whether such additional 
employees and existing unit members share an overwhelming community of 
interest and the additional employees have little or no separate 
identity.''.
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