US labor leaders say underfunding at federal agency has ‘reached crisis stage’

Union officials fear that the overstretched NLRB won't be able to handle the surge in union activity, giving corporations the upper hand

Labor leaders in the US are worried that the federal agency that oversees unionization efforts is approaching a true crisis" as it struggles with a decade of underfunding and a huge surge in union activity.

Last year saw a 58% jump in the number of union elections as union drives spread at companies including Amazon, Apple, Starbucks and other companies. Some labor leaders say they are worried that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has become so understaffed that it will have a hard time investigating the flood of allegations that Starbucks has violated America's labor laws hundreds of times in its efforts to crush a historic unionization drive.