Marathon Pundit: NLRB overreach: Obama's birthday edition

Thursday, August 04, 2011

NLRB overreach: Obama's birthday edition

Liberals protest Obama outside fundraiser

Last night was the party--see my related posts about it--but today is President Obama's 50th birthday.

NLRB overreach doesn't take birthdays off.

From Red State:

A day after President Obama held an "urgent" meeting with AFL-CIO bosses in the White House, the Democrat National Committee is hosting a huge birthday bash for Obama's 50th birthday tonight in Chicago. The only problem is, DNC organizers apparently chose not to use union labor for the event.

While no one was in at Chicago's IATSE local to confirm or deny whether IATSE members were ignored, an IBEW business representative seemed surprised when contacted over the telephone earlier.

IBEW Business Representative Jim Kelly stated that his IBEW local (which does camera work) was not contacted for the work. He also stated that the venue where the Obama Birthday Bash is taking place is a non union venue. A call into of UNITE-HERE's Local 1 confirmed that the Aragon Ballroom is, in fact, a non-union location.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, tickets will range from "$50 a person to $35,800 per couple, which includes VIP seating at a 'Birthday Concert' where celebs will be performing and a dinner with the president."

From the Daily Caller, a correction:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told National Public Radio listeners Tuesday that the recent Federal Aviation Administration shutdown can be blamed on Delta Airlines' opposition to new labor union rules.

Reid mistakenly said on NPR that Delta won't give in to new rules that the National Labor Relations Board passed under the Obama administration. Those new rules make it easier for labor unions to organize workers.

Actually, the labor board that oversees airline workers' unionization is the National Mediation Board. Reid's error is leading some Big Labor critics to question his ability to fully understand union politics and policy.

Airline workers fall under the Railway Labor Act, a specialized labor law that applies to certain industries with multiple interdependent locations. Most workers in other industries fall under the National Labor Relations Act, which the NLRB oversees.

The Hill:

After an acrimonious, months-long debate over raising the national debt limit, a battle many Democrats think the Republicans won, Senate Democratic leaders are becoming increasingly frustrated over how the media reports on the bold tactics of Tea Party Republicans.

This frustration boiled over during a Wednesday press conference on the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration and what Democrats call the GOP's extortionist tactics

The FAA had to temporarily lay off 4,000 workers because Senate Democrats and Republicans cannot agree to a reauthorization of the agency.

Democrats are angry that members of the media appear to be accepting the GOP argument that Democrats are to blame for the temporary shutdown.

More on the FAA, from National Review Online:

Apparently, Reid had a change of heart on Wednesday, joining Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and others at press conference at the Capitol to accuse Republicans of "hostage-taking" behavior for refusing to accept a clean FAA funding extension. Suddenly, it wasn't such a good idea for the Senate to simply pass the House bill, rather it was up to the House to accept whatever the Senate sent them, even after both bodies had adjourned.

"Under the cover of the debt ceiling crisis, [Republicans] are holding these aviation workers hostage until they get everything they want," Schumer told reporters. "They have taken brinksmanship again one step too far." Democrats are now calling on Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) to call the House back into session and pass a clean extension by unanimous consent. President Obama did the same at a press briefing later in the day. "This is a lose, lose, lose situation that can be easily solved if Congress gets back into town and do their job," the president said.

Boehner, meanwhile, was not amused. "All it will take to end this crisis is for the Senate to pass the House-approved FAA extension," he said in a statement Wednesday. "The only reason so many jobs are at stake is Senate Democratic Leaders chose to play politics rather than pass the House bill."

"If the Senate had significant objections, they should have acted on them, but they again did nothing," added House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.). "With millions of Americans out of work, it is more than irresponsible for Leader Reid and Senate Democrats to continue to put partisanship over jobs."