Congressman Donald Norcross (NJ-01) sent a letter to leaders of the House Appropriations Committee yesterday, requesting they include $368 million in funding for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS-Ed) appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2023. The bipartisan letter was signed by 148 of Congressman Norcross’s House colleagues.

“Our federal budget reflects our national priorities. It documents our values,” said Congressman Norcross, who co-founded the Congressional Labor Caucus and serves on the House Committee on Education and Labor. “These past few years have been incredibly tough on the working people of this country, and we’ve seen thousands organize to push for better wages and better working conditions in the pandemic’s wake. The NLRB plays a vital and independent role in ensuring employers respect workers’ rights, but they can’t do their job well unless they are adequately funded. That’s what nearly 150 of my colleagues and I are asking for: placing the American worker at the heart of the federal budget.”

“Despite the NLRB’s vital mission, the Board has received the same appropriation of $274M for nine consecutive fiscal years—effectively a 25 percent cut since FY2010, when the Board received $283.4M,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

The lawmakers continued, “Additionally, overall staffing levels have dropped by 39 percent over the past two decades and field staffing has been cut in half. These cuts come while there has been a dramatic increase in labor activity which has caused a higher caseload for NLRB staff. Just in the first half of FY2022, union election petitions were up 57% and unfair labor practice charges were up 14% compared to this time in 2021. Additionally, with 60 million non-union workers saying they would join a union if given the chance (including nearly 75% of young workers age 18-24), we only expect union election petitions to further increase. With this skyrocketing workload, the NLRB is now responsible for far more workers than a decade ago yet has been denied the funding to meet these statutory requirements.”

Read the full text of the letter here.

The full list of signatories includes: Representatives Alma Adams, Colin Allred, Cynthia Axne, Don Bacon, Nanette Barragán, Karen Bass, Donald Beyer, Earl Blumenauer, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Suzanne Bonamici, Jamaal Bowman, Brendan Boyle, Anthony Brown, Julia Brownley,  Cori Bush, Cheri Bustos, Salud Carbajal, Tony Cárdenas, André Carson, Sean Casten, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, David Cicilline, Yvette Clarke, Emanuel Cleaver, Steve Cohen, Gerald Connolly, Jim Cooper, J. Correa, Joe Courtney, Angie Craig, Jason Crow, Sharice Davids, Danny Davis, Madeleine Dean, Peter DeFazio, Diana DeGette, Suzan DelBene, Antonio Delgado, Mark DeSaulnier, Debbie Dingell, Lloyd Doggett, Michael Doyle, Veronica Escobar, Anna Eshoo, Dwight Evans, Brian Fitzpatrick, Ruben Gallego, John Garamendi, Jesús García, Sylvia Garcia, Jared Golden, Jimmy Gomez, Josh Gottheimer, Al Green, Raúl Grijalva, Jahana Hayes, Brian Higgins, Steven Horsford, Sheila Jackson Lee, Sara Jacobs, Pramila Jayapal, Henry Johnson, Mondaire Jones, Kaiali'i Kahele, William Keating, Dan Kildee, Ro Khanna, Andy Kim, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ann Kuster, Conor Lamb, James Langevin, Rick Larsen, John Larson, Barbara Lee, Teresa Leger Fernandez, Andy Levin, Mike Levin, Ted Lieu, Zoe Lofgren, Alan Lowenthal, Stephen Lynch, Tom Malinowski, Carolyn Maloney, Sean Maloney, Kathy Manning, Doris Matsui, Lucy McBath, A. McEachin, James McGovern, Jerry McNerney, Gwen Moore, Seth Moulton, Frank Mrvan, Jerrold Nadler, Grace Napolitano, Joe Neguse, Marie Newman, Donald Norcross, Eleanor Norton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Frank Pallone, Jimmy Panetta, Chris Pappas, Bill Pascrell, Donald Payne, Katie Porter, Ayanna Pressley, Jamie Raskin, Deborah Ross, Bobby Rush, Linda Sánchez, John Sarbanes, Mary Scanlon, Janice Schakowsky, Adam Schiff, Brad Schneider, Kim Schrier, David Scott, Terri Sewell, Mikie Sherrill, Albio Sires, Elissa Slotkin, Adam Smith, Christopher Smith, Darren Soto, Abigail Spanberger, Melanie Stansbury, Haley Stevens, Marilyn Strickland, Thomas Suozzi, Eric Swalwell, Mark Takano, Mike Thompson, Dina Titus, Rashida Tlaib, Paul Tonko, Ritchie Torres, Lori Trahan, Jefferson Van Drew, Juan Vargas, Marc Veasey, Nydia Velázquez, Peter Welch, Susan Wild, Nikema Williams, Frederica Wilson, and John Yarmuth.