Employers
The National Labor Relations Board said Thursday, Oct. 30, that its field offices have moved 10,684 of the investigations that were pending in January to a determination, chipping away at what the agency called an all-time-high backlog of workplace cases, while its leaders cautioned that a full fix will take time.
The figures come from the agency’s year-end case processing data for fiscal 2026, which ran from Oct. 1, 2025, to Sept. 30, 2026. The NLRB enforces the National Labor Relations Act, investigating unfair labor practice charges filed by workers, unions and employers and running union representation elections.
Filings dipped, partly because of the shutdown
A total of 21,587 charges and petitions were filed with the agency in fiscal 2026, a decrease of 4.27% from fiscal 2025, the NLRB said. The agency noted that it stopped casehandling during the 43-day government shutdown that lasted from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, 2025, and said that before the shutdown its data had been projected to show an increase in filings for the year.
The field backlog
When General Counsel Crystal Carey was sworn in on Jan. 7, 2026, there were 18,221 cases pending in the agency’s field offices awaiting investigation and determination, including nearly 10,000 that had been pending for more than six months, according to the release. The NLRB said the backlog began to grow in 2021 amid increased demand for its services and longstanding staffing and funding constraints.
As of Oct. 30, 10,684 of the investigations pending on Jan. 7 had been moved to determination, the agency said. In May, it transferred approximately 3,500 unfair labor practice charges among regional offices with more capacity; 1,810 of those transferred cases have since reached a determination.
The release describes several procedural changes behind the push. Building on December 2025 guidance requiring parties who file unfair labor practice charges to submit a timeline, supporting documents and witness information within two weeks, investigators were told to obtain the charging party’s evidence before seeking a response from the charged party, to avoid unnecessary requests for entire employee handbooks, and to reserve certain enhanced settlement remedies for exceptional cases. The general counsel also stopped requiring that every case on a particular issue be sent to Advice, as the release puts it, directing that cases be investigated under existing Board law.
“Let me be clear though, there is no overnight solution to this massive backlog,” Carey said in the release.
The Board's decisions
On the adjudication side, the Board lost its required quorum of at least three members at the end of January 2025 and regained it on Jan. 7, 2026. At that point 591 cases were pending before it. Another 208 were assigned through Sept. 30, for a total of 799, and the Board decided 507, leaving 292 pending at the end of the fiscal year.
In those nine months the Board issued 390 decisions in contested cases, which the agency said was the most since 2015, when it issued 394 after a full year of work. Chairman James Murphy called it the “issuance of the most decisions in over a decade.”
Budget and staffing
The NLRB tied its remaining challenges to money and people. Its budget was flat at $274 million from fiscal 2014 through fiscal 2022, rose to $299.2 million in fiscal 2023, stayed there for fiscal 2024 and 2025, and was cut to $294 million for fiscal 2026. The agency said staffing in its field offices has shrunk by 50% over the past two decades.
A day earlier, on Oct. 29, the Federal Register published an NLRB notice closing its Memphis, Tennessee, subregional office, effective immediately. The notice says the office has had no personnel since 2023 because of attrition, and that employees in the New Orleans regional office and the Little Rock, Arkansas, office will continue to serve the area. The agency said it expects no adverse impact on casehandling.
What it means for workers and employers
For anyone with a pending charge or election petition, the numbers suggest older cases are moving, but the agency did not publish median processing times in the release, and both Carey and the agency said more work remains. Parties filing new charges should expect to be asked for a timeline, documents and witness information up front.
Sources
- National Labor Relations Board, “Despite Hurdles, Board and General Counsel Report Favorable Case Processing Data for FY 2026, but Emphasize there is More Work to be Done,” October 30, 2026. https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/despite-hurdles-board-and-general-counsel-report-favorable-case-processing
- National Labor Relations Board, “Amendment of Statement of Organization and Functions; Restructuring of National Labor Relations Board’s Field Organization,” Federal Register, October 29, 2026. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/29/2026-22091/amendment-of-statement-of-organization-and-functions-restructuring-of-national-labor-relations
Featured photo: Items mailed by the National Labor Relations Board to a voter in a 2026 union certification election held by mail: instructions, a pink official secret ballot, blue and yellow return envelopes and a brown outer envelope. Photographed Aug. 13, 2026. Photo: ArielGlenn, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Cropped from the original.
