Violation of the laboratory conditions, or of the 24-hour silent period rules may result in the NLRB invalidating the election results. The twenty-four-hour silent period is intended to give the employees time to reflect upon their choice free from electioneering pressures. .

             The NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) is an independent federal agency established to enforce the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). As an independent agency, they are not part of any other government agency such as the Department of Labor. Congress has empowered the NLRB to conduct secret-ballot elections so employees may exercise a free choice whether a union should represent them for bargaining purposes. A secret-ballot election will be conducted only when a petition requesting an election is filed. Although representation elections conducted by the NLRB are the most common means through which unions acquire representation rights, an employer may also voluntarily recognize a union as bargaining representative for a group of employees when the union demonstrates majority support. This can happen provided that the employer has no reasonable doubt of the employees' preference and that recognition is not granted for the purpose of assisting one particular union at the expense of another seeking to represent the same employees.

             A bargaining unit is 4a group of two or more employees who share a ''community of interest'' and may reasonably be grouped together for collective bargaining purposes. The NLRB is responsible for ensuring that any election in a representation case is conducted in an appropriate unit. A unit is usually described by the type of work done or jobs classification of employees for example, production and maintenance employees or truckdrivers. In some cases, the number of facilities to be included in a bargaining unit is at issue, and the number of locations to be involved may describe a unit.