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organizing—with or without the nlrb117can avoid the years of delay and uncertainty that come with conventionalNLRB elections. 14The Board’s 2007 decision in Dana Corp., however, turns voluntary recognitioninto an invitation to a decertification petition. The Board had, untilDana Corp., given unions an irrebuttable presumption of majority status fora reasonable period of time after receiving voluntary recognition in order togive the parties time to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. 15 TheBoard reversed that in Dana Corp. by requiring the parties to post a noticethat invites employees to file a decertification petition within 45 days. Ifthe parties do not post the notice then not only is there no presumption ofmajority support while the parties bargain, but any contract that the partiesnegotiate will not enjoy the protection of the contract bar rule.It is hard to overstate the perverseness of that decision’s logic. Years ofdealing with an NLRB that was unable to protect workers from anti-unionretaliation <strong>have</strong> driven down the number of NLRB-conducted elections bymore than 80 percent over the past forty years. None of that experience madeany impression on the Board that decided Dana Corp.; on the contrary, itrelied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Linden Lumber v. NLRB, 16 tohold that its election procedures were so superior to all other methods forgauging employees’ desire for union representation that the employees whohad asked their employer to recognize the union must be allowed the rightto a secret ballot election, even though the employer (1) waived any right toask for an election and (2) lawfully granted recognition. ILGWU v. NLRB(Bernhard-Altmann Texas Corp.), 17 And the type of election that the DanaBoard thought was the preferred method for testing employees’ desire forunion representation? A decertification election.The Employee Free Choice Act would not only reverse Dana Corp. butextend the card check procedure to all employers, not just those that hadagreed to neutrality or card check agreements. It would also reduce theincentive for employers to bargain in bad faith in the negotiations for a firstcontract by providing for interest arbitration if the parties could not reachagreement.EFCA is, for the time being, on the back burner, and is likely to stay therefor the foreseeable future in a mid-term election year. We are more likelyto see Congress debate the issue if and when the new Board reverses DanaCorp. than a debate about EFCA itself.C. Instant electionsProfessor Weiler has made a similar proposal: hold the election as soonas possible after the union files its petition so that employees are not sub-

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