Last week the Connecticut Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Law Committee held an informational breakfast with the NLRB to discuss the NLRB’s proposal to make Hartford (Region 34), a subregion of the Boston office (Region 1).
Nick Zaino, the CBA Committee chair, forwarded these highlights as to why the consolidation is very likely going to become reality:
- The overall NLRB caseload and the number of NLRB employees is down by about 50% from the 1970s
- A “normal size” region generally process between 700 and 1000 cases annually
- There are a number of regions–approximately 10–that are considered small regions, including Hartford. Hartford currently processes around 450-500 cases
- The NLRB has been evaluating the possibility of making smaller regions subregions as vacancies occur at the Regional Director level
- The NLRB looked at consolidating the Boston and Hartford regions when the Boston Regional Director, Rosemary Pye, announced that she would retire
- Under the proposal, Jonathan Kreisberg would become the Regional Director of the combined Boston and Hartford regions with his main office in Boston
- There are no planned reductions in personnel in the Hartford NLRB office, although the Boston and Hartford offices could look to consolidate positions as vacancies occur through attrition
- John Cotter will be the officer in charge of the Hartford office, but there will be no change to his job duties
- There should not be any significant changes to the investigation or case handling process
- The consolidation of the Boston and Hartford offices would not become effective until notice is published in the Federal Register
- The anticipated date for the consolidation is October 1, 2012.