Marathon Pundit: NLRB overreach: Microwave edition

Friday, December 02, 2011

NLRB overreach: Microwave edition

Lots of NLRB and other union-related news today. First, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah speaks out in an op-ed in the Washington Times:

Over the years, the debate over workers' rights has mostly been about what political party or interest groups are more focused on strengthening these rights. Unfortunately, during this debate, one group of individuals has been forgotten: the workers themselves. After yesterday's decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to move forward with its proposal to allow for "quickie" or "ambush" elections, it's clear that it is not the NLRB that is most interested in protecting workers.

For too long, too many workers have been at the mercy of the whims of their bosses - but not the bosses who run the facilities where they work hard every day to earn a living. Rather, they’ve been at the mercy of their powerful union leaders, who are getting paid six-figure salaries to promote class warfare.

For decades, union bosses have held hostage such basic workers’ rights as a guaranteed secret ballot before a union could become the exclusive representative to negotiate issues such as salary, promotions or work schedules, or an employee’s right to control which political causes and politicians (if any) are supported with his money. Now that the NLRB finally is poised to give unions the quickie elections they’ve been pushing for, the right of workers to be fully informed before voting on unionization also will be held captive.

Make no mistake: Big Labor is not simply fighting for the desires of union workers. According to recent Opinion Research Corp. polling, 78 percent of union households think votes on union representation should be conducted by secret-ballot elections. A larger majority, 83 percent, think there should be a revote every three years. Seventy-nine percent think the union should get approval before spending an employee’s dues on political campaigns. And, despite claims of the former union lawyers at the NLRB who made Wednesday’s decision, 87 percent of union households support a proposal to require the board to wait at least 40 days after a union petition is filed before holding an election.

Investors Business Daily:

Unions: The National Labor Relations Board continued to serve its union masters this week when it moved forward on a new pro-union "microwave" election rule. Perhaps it's time to nuke the NLRB instead.

The rule, first drafted in June, would dramatically shorten the time between when a union gets signatures needed to hold an election and the election itself — cutting it to as little as 10 days from what today is typically five to six weeks.

It would also limit evidence that could be brought to initial hearings and postpone legal challenges until after the election, rendering them all but moot.

Whatever the Democrats on the board claim, the goal of this rule is obvious — to make it easier on unions to win elections.

Newt Gingrich continues to speak out against NLRB overreach. From the Charleston City Paper:

Early on, Gingrich scored points with South Carolina conservatives. As president, he said he would defund the National Labor Relations Board, which has accused Boeing of retaliating against union members in Washington state by locating its newest Dreamliner plant in right-to-work South Carolina. He reiterated his call from a previous Charleston appearance in July to increase offshore natural-gas drilling, saying the resulting tax revenues could be used in part to fund a modernization of the Port of Charleston (presumably a harbor deepening, although he did not specify).

Chinatown, 2010 Chicago Marathon

The US Chamber of Commerce:

Andy Stern, the former head of the SEIU, published an extraordinary op-ed in which he argued that the U.S. should adopt the central economic planning model of the People's Republic of China. And to support his argument, he misconstrues an important thought piece written by one of the greatest capitalists of all time, Andy Grove of Intel. The whole thing leaves me stammering.