Marathon Pundit: NLRB overreach report--version 9.2

Friday, July 08, 2011

NLRB overreach report--version 9.2

Palos Heights, IL--my hometown

The June unemployment figures our out--and the jobless rate increased again--it's now at 9.2 percent. Remember, the Obama administration promised that the unemployment rate would not exceed 8 percent when it was selling its since-failed economic stimulus.

Meanwhile, the NLRB's assault on the economy continues.

From the Heritage Foundation's Foundry Blog:

A former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board on Thursday blasted a proposed rule that would expedite elections for workplace unionization, insisting the proposed rule represents a "radical manipulation of the board’s election process" and an attempt to "tilt the process in favor of organized labor."

"The proposed rule demonstrates once again," claimed Peter Schaumber in his prepared testimony before the House Education and Workforce Committee, "that the current board majority feels unconstrained by the limits of the law and its role under the [National Labor Relations] Act to be completely neutral on the question of unionization."

Schaumber, who served on the NLRB from 2002 to 2010, the latter two years as its chairman, reiterated later in his testimony that the "animating concern" of the NLRB's majority "is the loss of union density in the private sector."

The changes to union election procedures implemented by the new rule, Schaumber suggested, are simply intended to swell union ranks by precluding employers from effectively making their case against unionization. Schaumber's claims echoed those of Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst James Sherk, who wrote last month that the rule would "short-circuit employers' ability to make their case. If the election takes place in a matter of days workers will base their decision (largely) on information received from the union."

The Hill:

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) said Thursday that he is considering offering legislation to block new union election rules from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that would likely hasten labor organizing.

Rep. John Kline (R-MN)

Kline, the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said Congress might need to act to prevent the labor board from overextending its authority.

"We are considering all options," Kline told reporters. "We are considering legislation. There's some discussion. I can't be any more specific. I don't have a bill number for you but it appears to many of us that the NLRB is overreaching, and we're looking at remedies to that."

Kline held a committee hearing Thursday to examine the new rules. Republican lawmakers blasted the proposed regulations, saying they give little chance for employers to campaign against unionization, while committee Democrats said they are a modest solution to resolve delays in union elections and bring them up to date with technology.

In Virginia, former Republican Senator George Allen is seeking his old seat. Assuming he wins his party's nomination, he'll face former Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine. The NLRB-Boeing case is an issue in Virginia.

From RealClearPolitics:

Allen's campaign is seeking to capitalize on a lawsuit filed by the National Labor Relations Board against Boeing for opening new manufacturing plants in South Carolina instead of in Washington state, partly to avoid the labor trouble that has prompted recent strikes by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The machinists union sued Boeing, alleging that moving some of its manufacturing operations to a right-to-work state was a form of retaliation prohibited by federal law.

This would seem to be an issue for President Obama to address, and not Tim Kaine, who never challenged Virginia's status as a right-to-work state when he was a governor and yet managed to keep good relations with organized labor. Except that earlier this year, the Obama-nominated National Labor Relations Board sided with the machinists union, putting the future of the South Carolina plant at risk, stirring up the politics of right-to-work states and handing conservatives across the country a timely campaign issue.

Perhaps no Democrat is put in a more uncomfortable position than Kaine. He can't speak against the board because he supported pro-union rallies in Wisconsin earlier this year as DNC chair. But he can't back the machinists lawsuit either because he very publicly supported Virginia's right-to-work law when he governed the state.

The Washington Examiner:

Larry Getts was a union shop steward at a past job, so he was inclined to support unionization when labor organizers showed up at his current job at a Fort Wayne, Indiana Dana Corp. plant that packs and ships auto parts. But this morning Getts testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce that he eventually soured on the union as its representatives launched a campaign to harass and misinform workers as part of its "card check" organizing drive.

While workers beat back the attempts by the United Auto Workers to unionize the plant, it was only because they had the time to uncover the fact that they were being lied to by the organizers. But if the National Labor Relations Board goes through with newly proposed rules to rapidly speed up elections, workers will no longer have that ability in the future.

Testifying at the hearing this morning on the new NLRB proposals, Getts described what happened after organizers appeared at the Dana plant in October 2007 as "intolerable." The UAW representatives offended older female workers with foul language, approached workers on their lunch breaks, waited for them at their vehicles before and after the work day, and even followed them home.

The UAW made a string of promises about the benefits of unionization such as increased wages, that eventually proved false. Yet under a "neutrality agreement," the company couldn't counter union claims, so workers were on their own to expose union misinformation.