Obama Tries To Revive Gutted Labor Board

By Bruce Vail

NLRB Chair Mark Pearce was renominated by President Obama in an attempt to get the broken labor board back into gear. (NLRB)

President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he would nominate three members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in a move to restore the beleaguered agency to normal working order. The announcement comes as the board is being hammered by political and legal attacks that have severely damaged its ability to function.

The president’s proposal would reappoint current NLRB Chair Mark Gaston Pearce and add two new members. If approved by the U.S. Senate, the nominations would restore the board to its full complement of five members, with three (including Pearce) representing the Democratic Party and two representing the Republican Party.

The two Republican representatives are the other nominations announced by the White House on Tuesday. The candidates are Philip Miscimarra and Harry I. Johnson III, both experienced lawyers at large firms known for representing employers in the their legal struggles against unions and workers. Miscimarra is a Chicago-based partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, and Johnson is a Los Angeles-based partner at Arent Fox (and a former partner at Jones Day).

Court Ruling on Labor Board Harms Workers

By RoseAnn DeMoro
NNU Executive Director

When the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled Friday to overturn President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, it handed a huge gift to Wall Street, big corporations and the politicians they control.

In health care, the implications are especially insidious. It is a clear assault on the ability of nurses to act collectively to improve safety standards and public protections for patients.

When the labor board is not dominated by corporate-oriented appointees, as it has been most of the past four decades, the game plan of the antiunion crowd is to bar the board from operating, either by refusing to confirm appointees, de-funding it or destabilizing it. That was what prompted these recess appointments, made by President Obama only after the Senate minority blocked confirmation of his nominees needed to restore a quorum on the board to enable it to function.

Trumka Calls Court Ruling on NLRB Appointments ‘Radical and Unprecedented’

by Mike Hall

Richard Trumka

(Jan 25, 2013) A panel of Republican-appointed judges, including one who has, according to Think Progress, previously suggested that all business, labor and Wall Street regulation is constitutionally suspect, ruled that President Obama’s 2012 recess appointments of three members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are invalid. Senate Republicans had been blocking confirmation votes on the three before the president’s action.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the ruling “shocking.”

Defending the NLRB from Romney Advisor’s Attack

by Julius Getman

Julius Getman

According to William Kilberg, a chief labor advisor to Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, President Obama and the National Labor Relations Board are engaged in a joint effort in violation of the law to limit the basic rights of corporate employers. He so states in an op ed that appeared recently in the Wall Street Journal, titled “What I Learned Fighting the NLRB.” His opening sentence states that the NLRB brought “a case against Boeing for opening a nonunion plant in South Carolina.” In fact, however, the case against Boeing had nothing to do with its opening a “nonunion plant.” Boeing had purchased a union facility months earlier from Vaught. No one contested its right to do so. Far from seeking to outlaw Boeing’s South Carolina facility, the complaint specified that “the Acting General Counsel does not seek to prohibit Respondent from making non-discriminatory decisions with respect to where work will be performed, including non-discriminatory decisions with respect to work at its North Charleston, South Carolina, facility.”

NLRB’s Flynn Resigns

by Tula Connell

Terrance Flynn

(May 27)Terence Flynn, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member, resigned yesterday evening, effective July 24. He has immediately recused himself from all agency business and has asked that the President withdraw his nomination for Board Member of the NLRB.

The NLRB Inspector General earlier this year issued two reports describing how Flynn funneled confidential information about NLRB activities and deliberations, including attorney-client privileged information, to two former NLRB members who have worked to undermine and discredit the NLRB. One of those former members was Peter Schaumber—who co-chaired the labor policy advisory group for Mitt Romney’s campaign.

GOP NLRB Member Passed Sensitive Information to Romney Campaign

by Mike Elk

Terrence Flynn

Earlier this month, Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, complained that House GOP members were blocking the release of a National Labor Board Relations Inspector General’s report. The report, which Miller’s office was eventually able to obtain and release late Friday, shows that GOP NLRB Member Terrence Flynn broke ethics rules by trading private NLRB case information for personal gain to anti-union law firms when he worked as chief counsel to GOP NLRB Member Brian Hayes during the 2010-2011 period. (President Obama appointed Flynn to the NLRB in January.)

The report (PDF) found that Flynn funneled sensitive information to Mitt Romney’s labor policy co-chair—former GOP NLRB member Peter Schaumber, who left the independent federal agency 2010—to be used in political attacks on the Board. And it recommends the Department of Justice investigate his actions.

Thousands of California Health Care Workers to Strike

Image via Wikipedia

In two weeks, the largest strike in Kaiser Permanente’s history
4,000 NUHW members and 17,000 California Nurses Association members to engage in largest strike in Kaiser’s History

NUHW issues official notice of giant health insurer’s first ever statewide strike

Yesterday, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) issued official notice to Kaiser Permanente of the union’s plan to engage in a statewide strike by 4,000 Kaiser caregivers should management continue to refuse to bargain in good faith toward a fair contract that safeguards quality patient care and that leaves workers’ benefits intact.

Despite enjoying record profits over the last two years, Kaiser administrators are insisting on implementing major reductions to workers’ healthcare coverage and retirement benefits. NUHW members have refused to roll over and accept management’s demands, and are holding the line against cuts which Kaiser intends to impose upon tens of thousands more employees represented by other unions as their contracts come up for renewal over the next several years.

The California Nurses Association, which represents 17,000 Registered Nurses at Kaiser, will join NUHW members in the largest strike in Kaiser’s history. Workers will walk off the job for one-, two- and three-day durations from September 21st to 23rd.

NLRB Administrative Law Judge Finds Sheraton Anchorage Hotel Guilty of Unfair Labor Practices

Unite Here Local 878

On August 25, 2011, Administrative Law Judge Gregory Z. Meyerson issued a long-awaited verdict on the sixteen separate allegations of unlawful behavior which had been lodged against Remington Lodging & Hospitality LLC, the operator of the Sheraton Anchorage hotel, by the National Labor Relations Board (the Board), the federal agency authorized to enforce the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which is the law that governs labor relations for most private sector employers. This ruling brings Sheraton workers one step closer to justice.  (Talking Union has covered the struggles of Alaska hotel workers  here and here.)

Basing his conclusions on the evidence that was presented before him during 40 days of hearing, Judge Meyerson’s ruling is a searing indictment of the Sheraton Anchorage’s reign of terror and abuse directed against its workers and their union, UNITE HERE Local 878.

The Board first brought most of these charges against the Sheraton Anchorage almost eighteen months ago, on May 28, 2010, and added more on August 17, 2010. Now, at long last, Judge Meyerson has concluded that the Sheraton Anchorage violated federal labor law in numerous ways, including:

It’s About Time–To Support the NLRB

by Julius Getman

Julius Getman. Photo by Wyatt McSpadden

The NLRB has come under attack from the likes of George Will, Eric Cantor, and the Chamber of Commerce. Its about time. Right wing spokesman have come to understand that the Board has resumed its statutory role as protector of employee rights and they don’t like it one bit. They were a lot happier with the Bush Board which never found an employee protest protected or a management action discriminatory.

It’s also about time that those of us who care about employee rights to come out strongly in support of the current Board which has showed steadfast courage in the face of continuing attacks.

Code of the Pirates: Boeing and the NLRB

by Stan Sorscher

A great line in the Disney pirate movie was where Geoffrey Rush (as Captain Barbossa) explained the Code of the Pirates, this way, to Keira Knightley (as Elizabeth Swann), “… the Code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ really, than actual rules.” He was a pirate, after all.

Citizens are expected to obey laws, and we all get nervous when laws are ignored or swept aside, particularly at the insistence of someone who is wealthy or powerful.

We are witnessing a case in point, in the recent investigation by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which charges that Boeing threatened and intimidated its unionized workers in Washington State. The intimidation and punishment are well documented. Boeing executives repeatedly threatened to move assembly work for the new 787 airplane from Washington State to South Carolina, pointing to strikes over the years by the Machinists’ union.

In labor law, this is a textbook example of “runaway shop.” It is illegal. Workers’ right to strike is protected by law, and employers cannot punish or threaten workers for exercising that right. The National Labor Relations Board has a duty to protect that right.