NLRB overreach: Home again edition

Boeing HQ, Chicago

I'm back from Denver and NLRB overreach is back as well. On the flight home I rode on a Boeing 757, which brings us to the Chicago-based aerospace giant.

From Investors Business Daily:

Newly released documents regarding the National Labor Relations Board complaint vs. Boeing reveal that extensive, though ultimately futile, efforts were made to avoid litigation.

Boeing officials say the documents relate to a settlement that they thought they had made with the International Association of Machinists, the union that brought the complaint.

The aerospace giant claims IAM revoked the offer after Boeing had accepted it. If true, that would suggest that IAM was interested in pursuing the case as a test of the NLRB's power under the Obama administration.

The documents are internal NLRB emails obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch via the Freedom of Information Act. They include notes on the Boeing case by Lafe Solomon, NLRB's acting general counsel.

The Oklahoman:

Leave it to liberal icon Nancy Pelosi to put the right-to-work issue in perspective. No wonder Oklahomans, just more than a decade ago, voted to become a right-to-work state.

IAM marcher,
Occupy Chicago

Pelosi, the U.S. House minority leader, believes it's unfair for Boeing to have a non-union aircraft plant in South Carolina. Boeing opted for South Carolina rather than dealing with sometimes expensive union problems in the state of Washington. Boeing is now the subject of a lawsuit by the Democrat-packed National Labor Relations Board, which is accusing Boeing of retaliation against a machinists union by opting for right-to-work South Carolina.

One would think a $750 million plant, hiring thousands of workers, would be a good development in this economy. Apparently that's not so for President Barack Obama and other liberal Democrats who are still aligned with labor unions and their steady campaign contributions.

In an interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, Pelosi, D-Calif., said the plant should be shut down if it didn't unionize. That's not exactly the kind of America many of us feel comfortable living in.

A Republican senator from Georgia thinks "mini-unios" are a big pain for job creators.

From the Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer:

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson has introduced legislation that would reverse a recent decision from the National Labor Relations Board on collective bargaining.

The board in August said that as few as two or three employees could form micro-bargaining units, or "mini-unions," to engage in collective bargaining with employers. Isakson said the administration's decision to allow micro-bargaining units "recklessly disregards the long-standing principles of collective bargaining" and said President Barack Obama's appointees at the NLRB are tipping the scales in favor of unions.

From OneNewsNow on Lafe Solomon:

An independent, pro-business group says President Barack Obama should replace Lafe Solomon at the National Labor Relations Board.

The issue stems from new documents obtained by Judicial Watch. In one instance, NLRB acting general counsel Lafe Solomon wrote "we screwed up the U.S. economy" in an email that involved the NLRB's complaint against Boeing's new plant in right-to-work state South Carolina.

Stephen DeMaura with Americans for Job Security (AJS) says it is time for Obama to replace Solomon.

Time for some common sense on organized labor, the Workforce Fairness Institute argues:

"We screwed up the U.S. economy, now we can tackle Europe…" This alleged "joke" was from an email authored by the General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It unintentionally captures what is going on at the National Labor Relations Board – an unelected board that is mightily trying to legislate a partisan union agenda by regulation is definitely screwing up the U.S. economy. The NLRB, which is currently trying to shut down a Boeing South Carolina plant, which would provide thousands of new jobs, and has a whole host of job-killing activities that if not stopped will continue to hurt the economy and job creation.

Instead of working with job creators, union bosses are now pushing a purely partisan agenda through agency fiat to change union election rules in order to inflate their union membership rolls. While this might help fatten their coffers and provide them with more campaign cash to distribute to favored candidates who promote their agenda, it does nothing for the average worker or business owner to create jobs. This partisan agenda also undermines employee choice as to whether or not they want to join a union. Congress is now properly asserting its role with the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act (H.R. 3094). This legislation will restore rights to employees and employers and curb the undemocratic legislating by regulation effort going on at the NLRB that is stifling job creation.

This pro-jobs/pro-employer/pro-worker legislation would:

■Allow employers to have at least 14 days to find proper counsel and prepare their case before a National Labor Relations Board pre-election hearing.
■Ensure the NLRB reviews any appeal filed when the pre-election hearing is complete.
■Give workers at least 35 days to listen to both sides in the union debate before they cast their votes in an organizing election.
■Apply the “sufficient community of interest” test to determine which group of workers will vote in an election instead of allowing unions to cherry pick small groups of workers to form “micro-units.”
■Safeguard worker privacy by letting workers control how much personal information about them is provided to unions during organization drives.

Meanwhile, there is pushback against the pushback, as RedState tells us:

Union-Bought Democrat Calls For End Of Congressional Probe Into Obama's NLRB

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