On Wednesday, June 14, 2017, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) announced introduction of The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act (S. 1350):

A bill to amend the National Labor Relations Act with respect to the timing of elections and pre-election hearings and the identification of pre-election issues, and to require that lists of employee eligible to vote in organizing elections be provided to the National Labor Relations Board.

While the text of the bill itself is not yet posted online, Sen. Alexander issued a press release indicating the bill would:

• Guarantee workers have time to gather all the facts to make a fully informed decision in a union election. No union election will be held in less than 35 days.

• Ensure employers are able to participate in a fair union election process. The bill provides employers at least 14 days to prepare their case to present before a NLRB election officer and protects their right to raise additional concerns throughout the pre-election hearing.

• Reassert the board’s responsibility to address critical issues before a union is allowed to represent workers. The board must determine the appropriate group of employees to include in the union before the union is certified, as well as address any questions of voter eligibility.

• Empower workers to control the disclosure of their personal information. Employers would have at least seven days to provide a list of employee names and one additional piece of contact information chosen by each individual employee.

As such, it would seem that this bill may be a combination of a House bill by the same name (H.R. 2776), and another, the Employee Privacy Protection Act (H.R. 2775).  The House Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Subcommittee held a hearing on these two bills on the same day last week, with McGuireWoods partner and LRT editor Seth Borden appearing as a witness: