Marathon Pundit: NLRB overreach report, former Motor City edition

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

NLRB overreach report, former Motor City edition

President Obama is promising another new jobs program. Will he announce it in Detroit when he visits on Labor Day? No, he still won't be ready. But he will be hanging out in the former Motor City with his Big Labor cronies, who certainly don't have any practial job creation suggestions for the president.

From the Detroit News:

President Barack Obama will visit Detroit on Labor Day for the annual celebration of workers, the White House said today.

Obama will be joined by national AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka, United Auto Workers President Bob King, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa and Service Employees International President Mary Kay Henry, officials said.

Because of security concerns, Obama isn't expected to march in the annual Detroit Labor Day parade, but will address union members afterward. The White House advance team hasn't arrived in Detroit to finalize the event.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed the president's planned trip. He also told reporters in Martha's Vineyard, where Obama is vacationing, that the president spoke to Ford Motor Co. President and CEO Alan Mulally about the state of the economy.

The overreach continues. From the Wisconsin State Journal:

President Barack Obama's labor relations board is still trying to give a big favor to unions that isn't justified or widely supported in Congress.

The National Labor Relations Board wants to speed elections to form unions and limit the ability of employers to prepare for such votes.

Legislation that similarly tried to encourage more unionization while handcuffing employers failed to clear Congress even when Democrats had a lock on power last session. And now that Republicans control the House, there’s even less chance of passage.

So the labor board is seeking to change the rules itself, regardless of negative congressional and public sentiments.

That's wrong.

From a Joe Nocerra op-ed in (gasp!) the New York Times:

Seriously, when has a government agency ever tried to dictate where a company makes its products? I can't ever remember it happening. Neither can Boeing, which is fighting the complaint. J. Michael Luttig, Boeing’s general counsel, has described the action as "unprecedented." He has also said that it was a disservice to a country that is "in desperate need of economic growth and the concomitant job creation." He's right.

That's also why I've become mildly obsessed with the Boeing affair. Nothing matters more right now than job creation. Last week, President Obama barnstormed the Midwest, promising a jobs package in September and blaming Republicans for blocking job-creation efforts. Republicans, of course, have blamed the administration, complaining that regulatory overkill is keeping companies from creating jobs.

Oh, about President Obama's promise to cut regulations. From Investors Business Daily:

The Obama administration announced regulatory reform proposals Tuesday that it claims would eliminate red tape and save taxpayers an estimated $4 billion over five years. What these reforms don't do much of is actually eliminate regulations.

An IBD review of the proposed reforms by the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury found scant proposals of doing away with regulations. In nearly all cases they called for streamlining or other efforts to make them more efficient.

These efforts come amid an overall rapid expansion of federal regulatory agencies under President Obama. Their budgets have grown 16% since 2008, or about $54 billion, according to a recent report by George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis.

Cass Sunstein, White House administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, stressed in an Op-Ed that the reforms are not a fundamental overhaul: They "complement but do not displace" rules to protect public safety and the environment.

The Daily Caller on "quickie elections":

On Monday the AFL-CIO submitted more than 21,000 comments on behalf of Americans who favor a new National Labor Relations Board-proposed "quickie election" rule change.

If the NLRB finalizes its proposed rule, the time between when union organizers file a petition and when an election takes place would be shortened to just 7–10 days. Traditionally, unionizing elections are held up to six weeks after organizers meet the petition requirements.

Union spokesman Josh Goldstein told The Daily Caller that the 21,000 comments submitted right before Monday's deadline "were organized by the AFL-CIO, primarily through our online tools that allow the public to be engaged in these types of opportunities to have their voices heard."

"These are separate from many other comments in support submitted to the NLRB not through the AFL-CIO," Goldstein said in an email.

Meanwhile, the House Republican majority toils to prevent whacko recess appoints, such as last year's atrocity, naming Craig Becker to the NLRB. From McClatchey:

Freshman Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., will briefly sit in a very special chair Tuesday for a several-minute skirmish in a long-running war.

By presiding over a ridiculously short House session, Denham is helping his fellow Republicans block President Barack Obama from making appointments while Congress is in recess. It's a bipartisan tactic, as are the recess appointments it's designed to frustrate.

"Stopping the president from bypassing the constitutional screening process and making a unilateral appointment is one way that I can ensure ... accountability to the people of California," Denham declared Monday.

To do so, Denham will gavel in a new House session at 10 a.m. For the moment, he will be called House speaker pro tempore. Since he will probably be the only House member in the chamber, Denham will recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The House chaplain will say a short prayer. A brief announcement may be made.