## Facts

- A union conducted an extended organizing campaign among a Los Angeles hotel’s employees, including picketing and urging customers to boycott the hotel while distributing materials criticizing working conditions.
- The union repeatedly sent the hotel letters proposing a neutrality and card-check arrangement under which the employer would remain neutral during organizing and would recognize the union if a majority signed authorization cards.
- Each letter expressly disclaimed that it was a current demand for recognition as the employees’ bargaining representative.
- The hotel filed an RM petition seeking a Board-supervised election, asserting the union’s conduct amounted to a recognition demand sufficient to support the petition.
- The Regional Director dismissed the RM petition, finding no present demand for recognition.
- The employer sought Board review of the dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether a union’s picketing, boycott advocacy, and critical literature, coupled with letters requesting a neutrality/card-check agreement that expressly disclaim any recognition demand, constitute a present demand for recognition.
2. Whether, absent a present demand for recognition, an employer’s RM petition may be processed to conduct a representation election under NLRA § 9(c).

## Decision

- The NLRB upheld the Regional Director’s dismissal of the RM petition.
- The Board found the union’s neutrality/card-check campaign did not constitute a present demand for recognition.
- The Board treated the union’s express written disclaimers as significant evidence that the union was not seeking immediate recognition.
- The Board concluded that the union’s public campaign activities, in context, did not convert the neutrality/card-check proposals into a recognition demand.

## Legal Principles

- An employer RM petition generally requires a predicate showing that the union has made a present demand for recognition as the exclusive bargaining representative.
- Union organizing activity and advocacy for a voluntary neutrality/card-check process, without an actual present recognition demand, does not by itself create a question concerning representation requiring an election.
- Clear union disclaimers that communications are not recognition demands may defeat an inference that a neutrality/card-check proposal constitutes a present claim to representative status.
- Picketing and boycott advocacy do not necessarily amount to a recognition demand when the overall communications and context indicate the union is seeking a future voluntary process rather than immediate recognition.

## Conclusion

The Board concluded that a neutrality/card-check proposal expressly disavowing any current demand for recognition is organizing conduct, not a present claim to represent employees; therefore, the employer could not use an RM petition to force a representation election on that basis, and dismissal of the petition was proper.


New Otani Hotel & Garden, 331 N.L.R.B. 1078 (2001)