The NLRB’s case backlog, which accumulated due to ex-General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo’s enforcement push, is well-documented. As our recent in-depth report detailed, open ULP charges against employers tripled between 2021 and 2024. The median case-processing time nearly doubled, and the informal settlement rate collapsed by more than half. And the hardest-hit employers might surprise you (hint: they’re not Starbucks).
Our analysis revealed that 61 percent of the 23,000+ open ULP cases involve workplaces with 100 or fewer employees. Forty-five percent involve workplaces with 50 or fewer. The employers who are most feeling this burden are 40-person shops, local manufacturers, and regional distributors who are seeing ULPs stay unresolved for two years and counting.
Meet the owner of a 35-person HVAC company who receives a call telling him that a former technician has filed a ULP charge. Suddenly, a routine termination decision has turned into an administrative saga. From that point forward, this employer is questioning how he should handle violations of the attendance policy. Or whether he can advertise and fill the position left open by that former employee. He’s second-guessing choices and calling his attorney for every personnel matter while wondering how this looks to a federal agency that’s got him in its sights. These days, that cloud doesn’t lift for 657 days on average. Before 2021, it was 279 days.
For Employers Facing ULPs, Size Matters
(Read our prior article to understand the mechanisms behind the Abruzzo memos that caused this ongoing backlog.)
For a large employer, dealing with the onslaught of ULPs is painful but manageable. These cases get handed to internal labor counsel while the business keeps running. Yet with small businesses, there’s no in-house legal department to handle these matters. The company’s owner or a single HR generalist is now juggling NLRB scrutiny over a single alleged ULP while running day-to-day operations. Abruzzo’s push for foreseeable remedies turned straightforward termination or backpay cases into speculative and potentially business-ending risks. Quite simply, the ULP deluge that resulted from Abruzzo’s memos has disproportionately fallen upon the employers who are least equipped to absorb the costs.
Still Open, Still Waiting
Our analysis found that of the 14,500 open cases at workplaces with 100 or fewer employees, about 9,800 were filed during the Abruzzo era and remain unresolved. For these employers, their active cases have no clear resolution on the calendar. The rescission of these harmful, overreaching Abruzzo memos did remove those procedural bottlenecks, but clearing the backlog is an ongoing and slow process. For the small employers whose cases entered the ULP system between 2021 and 2025, recovery won’t be felt anytime soon.
FAQs
What is a ULP charge?
A ULP (unfair labor practice) charge is a formal complaint, filed with the NLRB, alleging that an employer or union violated the National Labor Relations Act. Common charges include claims of refusal to bargain, coercive conduct, retaliation against employees for protected activity, and unilateral contract modification. Union employees can also file ULP charges against their own unions with the IBT Staff Council’s charges against the Teamsters being a prominent example. The NLRB investigates each charge and determines whether to pursue the case.
Were the Abruzzo memos rescinded?
Yes. On February 14, 2025, Acting General Counsel William Cowen issued GC rescinded 29 Abruzzo-era memoranda including the ones that caused the backlog. When General Counsel Crystal Carey took office in January 2026, she reaffirmed those rescissions through her own memoranda declined to issue any new mandatory-submission regime, a deliberate decision to let Regional offices resolve cases without the headquarters bottleneck that had frozen processing since 2021.
What is General Counsel Crystal Carey’s approach to ULP cases?
Carey took office in January 2026 and has signaled a clear departure from her predecessor’s positions. She has prioritized settlement and streamlining, and Carey has empowered Regional offices to investigate, settle, and dismiss cases without waiting for headquarters clearance. However, the inherited caseload of charges remains the biggest challenge of her tenure so far, despite Carey clearing up the procedures that caused the bottleneck.
