Marathon Pundit: NLRB overreach, roach motel edition

Monday, September 26, 2011

NLRB overreach, roach motel edition

Boeing HQ, Chicago

In a Greenville News op-ed, Mitt Romney rips NLRB overreach:

After 25 years spent as a businessman, I know that American workers have an extraordinary ability to respond to the challenges of an evolving economy and competition from abroad. Our country has what it takes to end 9-percent-plus unemployment and return to the path of economic growth. But at a moment when the American workforce must respond like never before, its ability to do so is under assault by President Barack Obama and the union bosses that he counts as his allies.

The National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) attack on Boeing for opening up a new manufacturing facility for its 787 Dreamliner here in South Carolina is a flagrant case in point. Even Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric and the chair of the president's own Jobs and Competitiveness Council, has sharply criticized the Board's charge that Boeing broke the law by opening a plant in a right-to-work state. The case has no legal basis and is certain to be dismissed by the courts. But damage has already been done: the rule of law has been undermined, business confidence shaken, and job creation further slowed.

It is easy to grasp what is going on here. President Obama is in political debt to labor leaders who funnel union funds to the coffers of the Democratic Party and who are vital to his re-election bid. In return, he has been advancing an agenda that gives more power to Big Labor in a way that hurts businesses and also the very workers whom unions ostensibly exist to represent.

One part of that agenda involved supporting a "Card Check" law that would eliminate secret-ballot union elections. To further the agenda, he stacked the once-impartial NLRB with union favorites, who, as in the Boeing case, are now calling the shots. For instance, they are pushing "snap" election rules that would give employers as little as ten days in which to prepare for an election or inform workers of the downsides of unionization.

From Pat Hickey's ...With Both Hands blog: St. Xavier University vs. NLRB - Esse Quam Videri.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) says the NLRB is turning union states into "roach motels".

From FitsNews.com:

As Barack Obama's radical appointees on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) continue their jihad against American jobs and the free market economy, many have wondered: From where does Obama get the nerve? Based on what warped ideological mooring does the leader of the free world summon the "audacity" to tell private companies where they can (or in Boeing’s case, "can't") locate new jobs?

That's easy – it's "The Chicago Way."

Obama’s hometown sets the standard for union appeasement – although a quick look at the Windy City's pro-union excesses reveals just how corrupt and unsustainable such practices are.

Earlier this month, the Chicago Tribune reported that 23 retired union leaders will collect $56 million from cash-strapped government pension funds – courtesy of a few well-placed lines that were quietly inserted into the state's 1991 labor law (with no public debate or cost-benefit analysis). It's the latest in a long line of flagrant abuses – handouts from corrupt politicians who continue to game the system for the personal benefit of a select, powerful few.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME):

No business owner I know questions the legitimate role of limited government in protecting our health and safety. Too often, however, our small businesses are buried under a mountain of paperwork that drives up costs, prevents the hiring of workers, and impedes economic growth.

Business owners are reluctant to create jobs today when they're going to need to pay more tomorrow to comply with onerous new regulations. That's what employers mean when they say that uncertainty generated by Washington is a big wet blanket on our economy.

I have asked employers in my state what it would take to help them add jobs. No matter their business or the size of their work force, they tell me that Washington must stop imposing crushing new regulations.

America needs a "time-out" from the regulations that discourage job creation and hurt our economy. I have introduced legislation to impose a one-year moratorium on any "significant" new rules that would have an adverse impact on jobs, the economy, or America's international competitiveness. A one-year moratorium on such regulations is a common-sense solution that would help create jobs.

From a Savannah Morning News op-ed:

Pro-union appointees on the NLRB have an obvious reason to want to block Boeing's South Carolina expansion. They see the company's decision as a move to punish its employees in a unionized plant in Washington state. And since Big Labor has been having trouble winning battles on a level playing field, it needs the NLRB's help.

President Obama, who needs Big Labor's political help, has looked the other way while the NLRB bullies Boeing. So much for a "pro jobs" chief executive.