NLRB General Counsel Issues Cemex Guidance

This summer, the National Labor Relations Board (the Board or NLRB) issued a decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC that upended decades of precedent regarding the representation election process.¹ A more detailed explanation of the decision can be found in our previous Update. The decision changed how employers must respond to union demands for recognition by discarding the Board's practice of allowing employers to insist on a Board-conducted election as a precondition to an enforceable statutory bargaining obligation.

On November 2, 2023, NLRB General Counsel (GC) Jennifer Abruzzo issued Memorandum GC 24-01 (the Memo) to "assist all in comporting with the goals of the Board's Cemex decision to eliminate delays in effectuating employees' expressed free choice of bargaining representative." The Memo illuminates the general counsel's prosecutorial goals under Cemex.