Marathon Pundit: NLRB overreach: Occupy Wall Street edition

Monday, October 31, 2011

NLRB overreach: Occupy Wall Street edition

SEIU Local 73
protester at Occupy Chicago

As further proof that Big Labor is out of touch with the economic mainstream, I present this news: it is championing the radical Occupy Wall Street movement.

Here's my latest story on OWS: Occupy Hell: Topless women, vandalism, rapes, over 2,500 arrests.

From NPR:

Attend just about any of the Occupy Wall Street-inspired protests across the country and you're likely to see a group of people dressed in matching union T-shirts somewhere in the crowd. Typically, they're older than your average Occupy protester but no less enthusiastic in their chanting.

Union posters can be found all over the Occupy Philadelphia protest site near City Hall. Protesters and local union leaders meet regularly to discuss tactics and how to involve labor.

Union posters can be found all over the Occupy Philadelphia protest site near City Hall. Protesters and local union leaders meet regularly to discuss tactics and how to involve labor.

"I've been doing this [protesting] for five decades," said Mike Wisniewski at a recent Occupy Philadelphia protest at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Wisniewski says he's a university library employee and has been a union member since 1972.

From the Wall Street Journal, paid registration required:

Union members who descended on Occupy Wall Street encampments armed with tents, food and organizational expertise hope to turn young demonstrators into enduring labor allies, part of a larger effort to rejuvenate the movement's aging ranks.

In the throngs of unemployed 20-somethings gathered in cities across the U.S., labor leaders see a chance to improve their movement's image with a generation of future workers who will be crucial to unions' survival.

A CNBC reporter, Maria Bartiromo, asks House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) a tough question about the NLRB's attempt to block Boeing from opening its 787 plant in South Carolina. The former House Speaker replies, "I don't think they close it down. I would hope that they would make it union." Fair and balanced. Not.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is just one of the many Republicans who disagree with Pelosi and the NLRB:

Simply put, government does not have the right to tell private companies where they can and can't do business.

South Carolina, Governor Haley, and Congressman Scott are working with Boeing to bring jobs to their state and they have every right to do so.

About Project Labor Agreements, which favor unions, from Red State: Dems Dodge Questions On Discriminatory Union PLAs For DNC Convention.

From Fox News: Long Island Railroad Workers Scam $1 Billion in Disability Benefits

From LaborUnionReport.com: Court of Appeals Smacks NLRB Over Postal Employees' Privacy

It looks like the NLRB will be able to cause less mischief for a while. From the Boston Globe:

Frustrated with union-friendly decisions from the National Labor Relations Board, Republicans hope to cut off the agency's power by denying President Barack Obama the chance to name members while the Senate is in recess.

The five-member board is now down to three members, and another will leave at the end of the year. The remaining two members could not legally issue decisions or make new rules.

"What they would be doing quite explicitly is trying to keep an agency from functioning through this maneuver," said former board member Wilma Liebman, a Democratic appointee whose term ended in August.