Marathon Pundit: NLRB continues to run amok

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

NLRB continues to run amok

The first full day of summer brings us more oppressive heat from the National Labor Relations Board.

From the Wall Street Journal--subscription required:

When Big Labor failed to persuade even a Democratic Congress to pass "card check" legislation, it turned to Plan B: the National Labor Relations Board, which yesterday delivered a plan for "quickie" union elections designed to make organizing easier.

Current law already gives unions an advantage in their ability to work covertly for months, quietly approaching employees to gather signatures for an election petition until springing the news on employers at the last minute. Companies then must make their own case to workers in the month or so it usually takes to hold an election. Unions typically win two out of every three elections.

The rules proposed yesterday would "streamline" the election process by denying companies longstanding election rights. The rules would set shorter time limits for hearings and filings, robbing employers of preparation time. The regulations would also strip companies of the right to litigate some issues—such as whether certain employees (supervisors) qualify to vote—until after an election. They'd also curtail employers' abilities to challenge pre-election rulings the agency makes against them, since those challenges also take time.

The lone Republican on the current NLRB, Brian Hayes, estimates the new rules could allow elections to take place in as little as 10 to 21 days from petition filing. "Make no mistake," he wrote in his dissent, "the principal purpose for this radical manipulation of our election process is to minimize, or rather, to effectively eviscerate an employer's legitimate opportunity to express its views about collective bargaining."

The Washington Times:

The chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee harshly attacked on Tuesday proposed new rules from the National Labor Relations Board designed to drastically shorten the period workers have to consider a vote to join a union.

Rep. John Kline, Minnesota Republican, who is the panel's chairman, said in a statement that the NLRB, now dominated by appointees of President Obama, "continues to push an activist agenda at the expense of our nation' workforce."

"Not only will this misguided proposal to expedite union elections undermine an employer's lawful right to communicate with his or her employees, it will cripple a worker's ability to make an informed decision," Kline warned.

National Review Online:

The Obama administration's takeover of the health-insurance system stands out in many Americans' minds as the distillation of its radicalism, but even more remarkable is its radicalization of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), part of its tireless campaign to aggrandize the cartels known as labor unions. Now the NLRB plans to rewrite the rules for union elections in a way that further strengthens the hand of the unions and undermines the freedom of employers to keep from having collective-bargaining contracts imposed on them against their will.

Obama's NLRB is contemplating new union-election rules that would give employers less time to organize a countercampaign. There is absolutely no reason for doing so other than to weaken the employers' position. Most union elections are conducted within a month or six weeks after union organizers file their petition for a vote; during the interim, employers have the chance to make their case against unionization, if they so choose. Under the fast-track votes contemplated by the new NLRB guidelines, that time would be reduced to less than three weeks, possibly as little as ten days. You'll notice that it is only the employers who face a time limitation: The unions may spend as much time as they choose organizing their campaign before filing the petition for a vote. In some cases, employers have no idea that their workforces are being organized for unionization until that petition is filed, placing them at a distinct disadvantage. And even if they know that union organizers are approaching their workers, employers already face significant restrictions on how they respond.

As usual, employers' property would be commandeered, and businesses would be required to share records, electronic files, contact databases, etc., with their antagonists. (Of course there is no reciprocal obligation on the unions.) In addition, employers' right to use legal and procedural channels to resist unionization of their workforces would be reduced.

This is every bit as crucial to the unions as was the "card check" proposal, which would have abolished secret-ballot voting in union elections, allowing union organizers to intimidate dissenters. It may prove even more effective a tool for amplifying the unions’ power. On top of this, the Specialty Healthcare case, currently under review by the NLRB, could change the union-election rules by rewriting the definition of a "collective-bargaining unit." Current rules define those bargaining units as enterprises or major divisions of enterprises; the changes being contemplated would allow any two workers who hold the same job to conduct a union-organizing vote on their own, empowering the unions to cherry-pick sympathetic workers and take over a workplace piecemeal.

The Washington Examiner:

President Obama's own nominee to be Secretary of Commerce said on Tuesday that the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel was wrong to sue Boeing for building a non-union factory in South Carolina.

Nominee John Bryson, who serves on Boeing's board, made the comments in response to a question by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Tex., at a hearing of the Senate's Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee.

"Do you think the stretch that the NLRB is making to try to keep Boeing from choosing where it manufactures its products, is the overreach of regulation?" Hutchison asked.

Bryson responded, "I think it's not the right judgment."