Marathon Pundit: NLRB overreach: Indiana edition

Thursday, October 27, 2011

NLRB overreach: Indiana edition

Could the Hoosier State, which has been successful lately in luring businesses from high-tax Illinois, just be warming up?

AP explains:

An Indiana panel is set to tell lawmakers to revive "right-to-work" legislation when they reconvene in January in a move that could set the stage for another showdown with House Democrats, who staged a five-week walkout over a similar proposal this year.

A draft of a report compiled by the Legislature's Interim Study Committee on Employment says businesses refuse to locate in Indiana because it is not a "right-to-work" state. The report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press details three months of study on the contentious issue.

The proposal would ban from unions in the state from mandating workers join their ranks or pay them a fee. Supporters say it would attract more business to the state but opponents, including labor unions, say it creates a "free-rider" problem where workers can enjoy the benefits of union representation without paying any dues.

The Republican-led committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday to consider the report. Republicans hold a one-vote margin on the panel and are expected to approve the report.

The pushback against Big Labor continues. From the Washington Times:

The House Education and the Workforce Committee on Wednesday passed another bill designed to curb the power of the National Labor Relations Board.

The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act, introduced earlier this month by Rep. John Kline, would strike down multiple NLRB rulings, most prominently one on the timing of union elections.

H.R. 3094 passed 23-16 on a straight party-line vote and is expected to go to the House floor for a vote sometime this winter. The prospects for passage in the Democratic-led Senate are poor.

"Big Labor has turned to an NLRB that is all too eager to advance their extreme agenda," Mr. Kline, Minnesota Republican and the panel's chairman, said in a statement. "Labor policies that have served our nation well for years are being torn down in a desperate effort to expand the power of union leaders."

From the Workforce Fairness Institute about that bill:

WFI Lauds Committee Approval Of Workforce Democracy & Fairness Act

Washington, D.C. (October 26, 2011) – The Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) today released the following statement in response to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce approving the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act (H.R. 3094):

"Today, Congress took another step toward reining in an out-of-control Federal bureaucracy intent on delivering handouts to union bosses and undermining the hard fought freedoms of workers," said Fred Wszolek, spokesperson for the Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI). "President Obama's National Labor Relations Board is committed to upending decades of precedent resulting in lost jobs and small business closures. The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act will stop the NLRB's destructive actions, end the bailouts to Big Labor and merits the support of a House majority."

From an op-ed in the Wilson County News:

A few weeks ago, the NLRB ordered the nation's employers to post a notice by mid-November informing workers about their rights to form a union and bargain collectively. The poster must be prominently displayed, 11" by 17", and posted in multiple languages if more than 20 percent of a company's workforce doesn't speak English.

This dictate grossly exceeds the NLRB's powers under federal law. It also violates employers' First Amendment rights, by forcing them to spend their own money to post NLRB's pro-union message. And it will impact more than more than 6 million companies, mostly small businesses.

Employment is at crisis levels, yet the NLRB sees no problem with imposing new and unnecessary rules on employers.

This is hardly new. The pro-union camp's first shot came in July, when the NLRB issued a formal complaint against the Boeing airline company.

From ABC News' The Note blog:

House Speaker John Boehner told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce this morning that government regulation is out of control. The Ohio Republican said businesses in this country are experiencing a "federal regulator onslaught."

In a speech to the chamber's annual legal reform summit, Boehner said dealing with excessive government regulation, reforming America's tax code and addressing the nation’s debt will help businesses create jobs.

Boehner did not specifically address tort or any kind of legal reform.

The speaker told the audience about a lawsuit by the National Labor Relations Board pushing to move a Boeing plant out of South Carolina. The speaker says the plant would create thousands of new jobs in South Carolina, so he doesn't understand why a federal agency would sue to move the plant. (The federal agency has alleged that Boeing engaged in unfair labor practices when it decided to build the plant)

The Huffington Post? Yes, the Huffington Post:

Government regulations take the biggest toll on small businesses, according to a new Gallup poll.

The Gallup Small Business Index, which polled more than 600 small-business owners in early October, showed that of all the possible obstacles facing small businesses, 22 percent felt government regulations caused the biggest problem, while 15 percent noted consumer confidence and 12 percent blamed a lack of consumer demand. Other issues cited by business owners included a lack of credit availability and poor leadership by the government. Surprisingly, the lack of jobs in the market was noted as the least problematic.

Many small-business owners are still worried about the fate of their business, with one in three owners saying they are moderately or very worried about going out of business. A similar number of small-business owners were moderately or very worried about competing with large or global competitors, not being able to hire employees or being unable to pay employees. Thirty percent fear they will have to cut down the size of their staff in the coming year.

"Given this situation and the fragility of the economy, I think a moratorium on new government regulations would be beneficial," said chief economist Dennis Jacobe, the author of the study. "We can leave arguments about the public benefit of new government regulations versus the cost to business for another –- better – economic situation."

Better late than never. From CNN:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Wednesday expressed his support for a referendum that would curb collective bargaining rights for public employees in Ohio, after he avoided directly weighing in on the battle Tuesday.

"I support question two and Gov. Kasich's effort to restrict collective bargaining in Ohio in the ways he's described," Romney said at an event in Virginia Wednesday. "So I fully support that."

He also apologized if he created any confusion with his earlier comments upon which rival candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry quickly pounced.

"As a true conservative, I stand with Gov. Kasich in promoting S.B.5 for fiscal responsibility and job creation in Ohio," Perry said in a statement to CNN Tuesday. "Gov. Kasich and the Republican leadership of Ohio are to be commended for their efforts."