Union Petitions Filed with NLRB Double Since FY 2021, Up 27% Since FY 2023

From October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board received 3,286 union election petitions, up 27 percent since FY 2023, when the Agency received 2,593 petitions, according to the NLRB. This is more than double the number of petitions received since FY 2021, when the NLRB received 1,638 petitions.

Likewise, from FY 2023 to FY 2024, unfair labor practice charge filings increased 7% (from 19,869 to 21,292 cases). In sum, the NLRB’s field offices received a total of 24,578 cases, the highest total case intake in over a decade.

“The surge in cases we’ve received in the last few years is a testament to workers knowing and exercising their rights under the National Labor Relations Act and to our board agents’ accessibility and respectful engagement with them,” said NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo in a statement. “Our committed and talented NLRB staff continue to process cases with professionalism and care, despite working with limited resources.  I urge Congress to fully fund the NLRB so that employers, unions, and workers receive prompt and meaningful case resolutions.”

The increase in cases filed in the NLRB’s field offices also caused an increase in cases for the adjudicative side of the Agency. In FY 2024, the Board received 393 unfair labor practice and representation cases, up 22 percent from 321 cases last year. The Board increased its productivity in FY 2024, issuing 259 decisions—a 5 percent uptick from FY 2023. As has been the case for the last several years, however, the Board’s case processing achievements were overtaken by a significant jump in case intake, ending FY2024 with 288 pending cases—46 percent more than the 197 pending cases at the end of FY 2023.

“The NLRB’s dedicated employees have worked hard this year to process cases efficiently, but the ongoing surge in case intake continues to increase our backlog,” said Chairman Lauren McFerran. “Additional resources are necessary to enable the Board to expand staffing capacity and ensure that the workers, employers, and unions that rely on our agency benefit from timely resolution of their labor disputes.”    

The increased workload on both sides of the Agency comes as the NLRB continues to deal with funding and staffing shortages. In the past two decades, staffing in field offices has shrunk by 50 percent. In FY 2011, when the NLRB faced a similar volume of case intake, the Agency had 62 percent more field staff—1,222 in FY 2011 vs. 754 in FY 2024—allowing the investigation and resolution of cases much more quickly. After being flat funded for almost a decade, in FY 2023 Congress gave the NLRB a $25 million increase, which ended a hiring freeze, prevented furloughs, and allowed the NLRB to backfill some critical staff vacancies. However, in FY 2024, Congress flat-funded the NLRB at $299.2 million at a time when more resources remain desperately needed.