Costly missteps in the National Labor Relations Board’s new intake protocol are emerging, as union attorneys report instances where regional offices have thrown out unfair labor practice charges based on technicalities or their own errors.
Since the agency changed its intake protocol at the end of 2025, regional NLRB offices have cited charging parties’ failure to cooperate when dismissing cases for reasons like not filling out questionnaires with the same information they already submitted to the agency—something a top agency official said shouldn’t happen—or missing a deadline the agency didn’t notice.
While some lawyers said they were able to persuade regional officials to reinstate the charges, the dismissals create concern that workers or unions without legal counsel could effectively lose the protection of federal labor law because of bureaucratic problems with the agency’s docketing system.
“If you don’t have aggressive representation, you’re screwed,” said Seth Goldstein of Goldstein & Singla PLLC.
Goldstein said he spent nearly two hours researching and writing a letter to convince the NLRB’s Boston regional office to revive a charge alleging an unlawful termination of a Trader Joe’s East worker. The region had tossed it for noncooperation because Goldstein didn’t meet the two-week deadline for submitting initial information after filing the charge.
But Goldstein said he didn’t receive the initial docketing letter advising him of that deadline—or any...
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