WASHINGTON - Responding to the National Labor Relations Board€™s (NLRB) proposal to streamline the process for workers to organize, employer groups "turned out in force" earlier this week in Washington to challenge the proposal, The Washington Post reports.

The NLRB€™s rules would eliminate election delays that unions maintain allow employers to thwart organizing efforts.

In response, employer representatives told the NLRB that streamlining elections would deprive companies, especially small businesses, of the opportunity to seek legal consult and to communicate with their workers prior to a vote.

"It is patently unfair to make it virtually impossible for an employer to present the other side of the organizers€™ pitch," said Brett McMahon, a vice president of Miller and Long Construction, a nonunion contractor in the Washington area. "What is to fear from a fully engaged presentation of the facts from the employer€™s perspective?"

Union representatives countered that the purpose of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act was to give workers a voice with their employers, not vice versa.

"The board processes as they exist today have become hijacked by the employers," said Margaret McCann, representing the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "How has it become that the election process has been subsumed by the employer€™s right to communicate with its employees?"

The proposed rules would postpone many employers€™ challenges until after elections, remove a 25 to 30 day waiting period, and require employers to include cell phone numbers and email addresses in the employee lists they provide to organizers.

The Post speculated the rules "could conceivably shorten the period between a petition filing and election to as little as 10 days," down from the current average of 38 days.

The hearings concluded yesterday and NLRB is accepting comments until late August.