WFI sends NLRB letter concerning pro-union employee emails

Any doubts that the National Labor Relations Board is a shill for Big Labor should be put aside after Judicial Watch discovered blatantly pro-union emails between NLRB staffers.

In a letter to the agency, the Workforce Fairness Institute expresses his disappointment.

Inspector General David P. Berry
National Labor Relations Board
1099 14th Street NW, Suite 9820
Washington, DC 20573

Dear Mr. Berry,

I am writing on behalf of the Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) an organization committed to educating workers, their employers, and the public in general on important issues affecting the workplace.

We are concerned with the recent batch of emails authored by various employees of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). These e-mails, released by the agency to Judicial Watch pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request, reflect decidedly union partisanship by NLRB staff employees charged with assisting the agency in interpreting and enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act). Their content calls into question the neutrality of this taxpayer-funded agency.

Over the last year and a half, the NLRB political leadership has engaged in an aggressive effort to augment union power with little regard for the rights and interests of workers and their employers. Whether it be stripping employees of their right to challenge their employer's voluntary recognition of a union by card check, the approval of "micro-units" as the option of a petitioning union, the proposal that would drastically shorten the time period for board elections and make sweeping changes in the board’s election procedures, or the controversial Boeing complaint, these actions have undermined the Obama board's legitimacy in the eyes of those it is charged with protecting and regulating.

The emails demonstrate that the union bias of the agency's political leadership is echoed by at least some NLRB career employees and, perhaps, it is endemic throughout the agency staff. To be effective stewards of the rights and obligations the Act created, however, career government employees must have the ability to put their personal ideological preferences – to the extent they have them – to the side. If they are unable to do so, they are ill-suited to perform the functions their positions require.

When an employee of the NLRB applauds a press release issued by the charging party in the Boeing litigation, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, with a "hooray for the red, white, and blue," when another approvingly quotes from the same press release and other agency staff chime in their approval, they are cheerleading for one side in a dispute that raises significant legal and policy issues. Since Boeing has a 35-year relationship with the IAM, treats its employee's well and obviously takes its obligations under the NLRA seriously, these e-mails suggest the staff writing them are either hostile toward employers in general, Boeing in particular or have little appreciation for the legitimate needs of businesses in our free enterprise system. In any event, the e-mails demonstrate a lack of neutrality on the issue of unionization, a statutory command since the Taft-Hartley amendments of 1947.

The Boeing complaint seeks to alter the distinction drawn in the law between management's operational decisions that are motivated by anti-union animus and those that are motivated by the economic consequences of unionization. While we recognize that the agency's general counsel has the authority to file a complaint that seeks to change and expand board law, when a complaint can fairly be interpreted as inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent and is filed against a premier American corporation, one would anticipate that agency staff would find it inappropriate to express partisan views in favor of one side or the other. Such unfortunately is not the case here.

As a result, we request that you address the appropriateness of these e-mails and what action the agency intends to take to assuage public concern that NLRB staff is biased in favor of unionization, perhaps ignorant of, or even hostile to, management needs and interests in our free enterprise system.

A few weeks ago the agency held a conference and attendance was compulsory for all headquarters staff personnel. The invited speakers included two progressive union advocates with views many believe are outside the mainstream. It seems to us in light of these e-mails it is incumbent on the agency to expose agency staff to other countervailing views, those of employer and employee associations. We would be happy to participate in making such a conference a reality.

Sincerely,

Fred Wszolek

Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI)

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