Marathon Pundit: NLRB overreach: NMB and Boeing

Monday, October 24, 2011

NLRB overreach: NMB and Boeing

I've written extensively about another radicalized-agency, the National Mediation Board, changing a voting rule in favor of Big Labor. First Delta Airlines, now Virgin. From the Wall Street Journal--free registration required:

The Transport Workers Union on Monday is slated to petition the government to call a representation election in which the union hopes to win the right to represent 650 flight attendants at discounter Virgin America.

Virgin America, a Burlingame, Calif., company with a hub in San Francisco, has 2,100 employees and is entirely nonunion. Richard Branson's Virgin Group of the U.K. has a 25% voting stake and a 49% economic interest in the company.

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If the NMB agrees that the signature cards are valid, it would schedule an election and oversee the balloting within 45 days. An election would come after a new NMB rule went into effect in July 2010 allows a union to be created by a majority of worker votes cast, instead of requiring a majority of the entire work group to cast ballots and a majority of those to choose representation.

The Bowling Green (Kentucky) Daily News:

For more than 75 years our country has attempted with some success to provide a level playing field for employers and unions through legislation including the Wagner Act, Taft-Hartley Act and the Landrum-Griffen Bill.

These efforts to strike an appropriate balance between the interests of unions, employers and employees have served this nation well.

Regretfully, this delicate balance is at grave risk today as a result of extreme pro-union bias by the Obama administration and a National Labor Relations Board heavily influenced by President Barack Obama's appointees.

A case in point is a planned NLRB rule that will become effective in January that requires most businesses to post a notice informing workers of their right to unionize.

Congressional pushback against the NLRB continues. From Pajamas Media's Tatler blog:

On October 12, 2011, Representative John Kline (R-Minn.), Chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, held a hearing on H.R. 3094, The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act, which is aimed at keeping the NLRB's onerous rules in check. According to an article in The Hill on October 12, "Kline's bill would give employers at least 14 days to prepare their case for a NLRB election officer. It would also change the law so that no union election could be held until at least 35 days after a petition is filed. The provisions are in response to a rule intended to speed up elections…The measure also would void a recent NLRB decision that allowed smaller bargaining units to demand union elections. Kline's bill would go back to the earlier standard."

If the President wants his actions to meet his rhetoric he should support Rep. Kline's legislation and Congress should take a very close look at the NLRB and it's multi-million dollar budget.