NLRB overreach, lights-on edition

Lights back on at home!

Good news. My electricity came back on yesterday--after 56 hours of sweating in the dark. Lights on, lights off, but the NLRB overreach goes on.

An appropriate place to start is with General Electric and it's Obama-cheering CEO. From Fox Business News:

General Electric chief executive Jeffrey Immelt offered a bit of impromptu support Wednesday for another corporate giant and some-time competitor Boeing.

Immelt said he's "way in support" of Boeing in its battle with the National Labor Relations Board over a complaint filed against Boeing charging it with violating federal labor laws.

But hold it. Isn't Immelt head of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness? Yes, he is.

Awkward.

From the Detroit News:

For seven decades prior to the administration of President Barack Obama, railway and airline unionization elections could be won by unions only if they secured the votes of a majority of all of the employees in the relevant job classification at the transportation firm. Since 2009, unions need only win a majority of those voting in the current unionization election.

Last month, however, the National Mediation Board, which has a new majority under the Obama administration, has announced that it will be conducting an investigation into four elections at Delta, following complaints that the airline interfered with the votes. The investigation will be conducted by an agency whose three-member governing board contains two former union leaders.

If the agency finds against the airline, it can order more elections. The legislation creating the National Mediation Board allows for no court challenge of the agency's findings. Fairness requires that it be amended to do so.

Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union issues in other industries, is proposing to change its rules governing the union representation votes. The proposals would reduce the time between a petition for a unionization vote and the actual election; remove a company's ability to contest whether certain employees are eligible for unionization prior to the vote and also remove employers' ability to appeal NLRB rulings against it prior to the vote.

Charleston Post and Courier:

GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich toured the Boeing plant in North Charleston today and afterward called on President Obama to remove the National Labor Relations Board general counsel and the complaint challenging the company's expansion to South Carolina.

Ruberry and Gingrich at CPAC 2011

Obama, he said, needs to "simply end the NLRB case," which Gingrich said is without merit. The former House speaker toured the plant for about two hours.

Besides being an attack on Boeing and it South Carolina workers, Gingrich said the suit is working to stymie various suppliers who could be streaming themselves into the Boeing pipeline but are unsure how much of the plant will be functioning in the months ahead.

"What it does is slow down new manufacturers from moving in because they are not going to take the risk with their own money," he said.

Red State has a story, Obama's labor board: We prosecute dead people too…

And finally, from the Litchfield Register Citizen:

President Barack Obama may try, but he can't walk away from an attempted radical reinterpretation of labor laws he set in motion. If this attempt is successful, it would drive more jobs overseas, seriously harm the economy and Boeing, the nation’s largest exporter.

This assault on business was launched by the National Labor Relations Board, which Obama has stacked with labor union lawyers.

On his first day in office, Obama appointed Wilma B. Liebman as chairwoman of the NLRB. Liebman is a former attorney for the Teamsters and a former general counsel for the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers. In 2010, he appointed Craig Becker, the associate general counsel of the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO. Becker has written in favor of limiting employer rights in labor disputes. Also, Obama named Mark Pearce, a private lawyer for labor unions.

Businesses' worst expectations were exceeded when these Obama appointees decided that Boeing's opening of a plant in South Carolina was retaliation against its union workers for past strikes at factories in Washington state. The NLRB wants the work moved back to Washington. The $1 billion factory in South Carolina would close and 1,000 workers there would lose their jobs.

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