Marathon Pundit: First of July NLRB-NMB overreach roundup

Friday, July 01, 2011

First of July NLRB-NMB overreach roundup

Just a couple of NLRB-Boeing stories today.

From the New York Times:

Republican presidential candidates have denounced the [Boeing-NLRB] case as a symbol of President Obama's liberal agenda because he appointed the labor board's top officials. This week, Mitt Romney called the labor board’s case a job killer. Newt Gingrich has proposed terminating the board’s funding, and Tim Pawlenty said the case evokes "the Soviet Union circa 1970s."

At a time of great economic anxiety, the case raises questions about the federal government's role in promoting — or impeding — corporate investment and job creation.

Facing so much heat, Mr. Obama said on Wednesday that he did not want to discuss details of the case because the NLRB was an independent agency.

However, "as a general proposition, companies need to have the freedom to relocate," he said. "We can't afford to have labor and management fighting all the time, at a time when we're competing against Germany and China and other countries that want to sell goods all around the world."

Fortune:

How many ways are there to sidestep Congress' refusal to make it easier for unions to organize? Let us count them. No, better than that, let's add yet another example -- this one involving Delta Airlines -- to the growing pile of end-runs around Congress to reward a constituency this White House badly needs at its side in next year's presidential election.

Labor leaders bet big on an Obama victory in 2008, hoping Congress would enact, and the Democratic president would sign, "card-check" -- legislation designed to turn around labor's sagging membership rolls by ending secret-ballot elections in organizing drives. But card-check has never been able to pass the Senate -- not even when Democrats took over Congress in 2006. Instead, presidential appointees friendly to labor are deploying agency muscle.

The latest example is taking place largely out of sight -- at the National Mediation Board, a little known agency that oversees union elections for railroads and airlines.

More...

It's pretty obvious that's the message the White House and its allies are hearing. But with the economy stuck in mud, it would make more sense to listen to these telling comments from Delta's Anderson: "Attacking American businesses directly undermines the administration's stated goal of encouraging job creation and economic growth. Delta has created new jobs, but unfortunately this environment makes it difficult to predict what we will be able to do going forward."