The Wall Street Journal reports, “the legality of the appointments is being challenged in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, where lawyers for the housing complex owner are challenging an injunction sought by the NLRB to end a lockout of members of the Service Employees International Union following a pay dispute. NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon filed for the injunction last week, after the current board members authorized him to do so….The first legal challenge to Mr. Obama’s recess appointments came last month, when three groups—the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the National Right to Work Foundation and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace—asked a judge to rule on whether the appointments to the NLRB violate the U.S. Constitution.”

President Obama violated the constitution precedent when he made “recess” appointments to the NLRB while Congress was in session.  It is imperative that the courts stand up to this power grab and we are working to ensure that happens.

Politico reports:

The Kentucky Republican appears to be the first sitting senator to legally object to the Jan. 4 appointments that drew fire from congressional Republicans, who say the president overstepped constitutional boundaries by installing three members to the labor board and Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“With the recent recess appointments, President Obama has circumvented our Constitution and showed complete disregard for the separation of powers,” Paul said in a statement Tuesday. “He has demonstrated once again that he is willing to treat the office of the presidency like a dictatorship.”

Paul said he plans to file a friend-of-the-court brief backing legal action by the National Federation for Independent Business and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The groups filed court claims on Jan. 13 arguing that the NLRB appointments are unconstitutional.

While Big Labor Bosses continue to pour forced-union dues into campaigns to stop Right To Work freedom, they also continue to shower Barack Obama with forced-dues money even-though Obama just killed a pipeline project that would have created jobs for 20,000 workers, many of which would be union members. If most of their members had the Right To Work, they could stop paying dues and force union officials to pay attention to union member jobs rather playing politics with union families’ income.

From Lachlan Markay’s post:

The Obama Administration’s decision to forego the Keystone pipeline has forced the country’s labor groups into a bitter civil war. At issue is the central purpose of the labor movement: those who feel it should represent workers in the workplace generally oppose the administration’s decision; those who see unions as primarily political organizations have generally supported it.

Unions that had a stake in the Keystone decision were livid that the administration abandoned it, and equally angry at their fellow union members who had supported that decision, according to a Friday report from Politico Pro ($):

“People are p****d,” said one U.S. labor official who supports the proposed TransCanada pipeline. “The emotions are really, really raw right now. This is a big deal.”

“It’s repulsive, it’s disgusting and we’re not going to stand idly by,” Laborers’ International Union of North America General President Terry O’Sullivan told POLITICO. “The rules have changed. So we’ll react accordingly.”…

But other top figures in the labor movement defended the decision. Their argument: re-electing President Obama is a higher priority than preserving union jobs, and to that end, unions had to prevent Republicans from gaining the upper hand on the top political issue of the day.

But the unions who signed the joint statement said it was the right thing to do and was necessary to help Obama fend off Republican attacks over his jobs record.

“We’ve worked with Sierra [Club] and the others for a long time and we raised the issues about the hypocrisy of the Republicans in our statement,” Communications Workers of America spokeswoman Candice Johnson said. “That’s what we believe and … we thought it was very important to lay out exactly what was happening.”

“It was kind of not explicitly about the president’s decision [on the pipeline] but the main issue was to rally around the president when the issue of jobs was being taken over by the GOP,” said Sean Sweeney, director of the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University, who helped the effort.

“The president’s re-election is at stake here,” he said. “There’s bigger fish to fry. There’s more at stake here than just a pipeline.” [emphasis added]

So while the decision to not move forward with Keystone XL may “destroy our members’ lives,” as Sullivan put it, political issues, per the Johnson and Sweeney camp, must override concerns about the actual jobs of current union members.

From Heritage:

Richard Griffin, the former general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers, will receive regular payments under two different IUOE pension plans. The payment amounts are not listed on the disclosure form. He will also receive a single lump sum payment equal to three weeks of salary (one week for each of the three years since he enrolled in the plan). Griffin’s annual salary as the IUOE’s general counsel was $376,778, according to the disclosure form.

In his capacity as general counsel, we have noted, Griffin advanced policies that helped insulate corrupt union leaders from challenge.

Both Griffin and Sharon Block, who was also illegally appointed to the NLRB, filed ethics agreements with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics stating that they will not, in their capacity as NLRB members, participate in matters that might affect their personal finances. Assuming that agreement is adhered to, Griffin’s continued compensation by the IUOE is licit.

Worker Advocate Challenges Constitutionality of Obama’s Controversial Labor Board Recess Appointments

Case over controversial NLRB posting becomes first legal challenge to Presidential attempt to make “recess appointments” without actual recess of the Senate

Washington, DC (January 13, 2012) – Today, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed a motion in federal court challenging the legality of President Barack Obama’s recent purported recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The legal challenge is part of a larger case attacking controversial new NLRB rules that require every employer to post incomplete information about employee rights online and in the workplace, even if they’ve never violated or been accused of breaking federal law. The NLRB’s posting rules do not require union officials to issue information about workers’ rights to refrain from union membership or opt out of union dues. Currently employers can only be required to post notices if the Board has ruled that a violation of labor law occurred.

The Foundation’s case has been consolidated with other legal challenges to the biased NLRB notice posting rules brought by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW), and two small businesses. Those parties filed the joint motion today raising the issue of the NLRB’s lack of authority to implement the rule given the unprecedented recess appointments.

The new filings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia case comes after NLRB lawyers notified the court that President Obama’s recent recess appointees were now parties in the ongoing legal battle. Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s New Process Steel decision, the NLRB needs three members to act. However three of the five current NLRB members were installed by unilateral Presidential appointment earlier this year, despite the fact that the Senate was not in a self-declared recess.

In the motion papers, Foundation attorneys argue that the controversial appointees to the Board are not legitimate because the U.S. Senate is still in session per the body’s rules, so there was no “recess” for the President to make appointments without Senate confirmation. Therefore the NLRB lacks the necessary quorum to implement the new posting rules. Foundation attorneys are asking the judge to rule on the constitutionality of the three recess appointees.

“President Barack Obama has already shown time and again that he is willing to abuse his executive authority to force more workers into union-dues-paying ranks,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Now Obama’s executive abuse jeopardizes the constitutional balance our country holds very dear, all in the name of paying back his Big Labor benefactors.”

The implementation of the NLRB’s new posting rules, originally supposed to be in August of last year, has been twice delayed due to the legal challenge in the Foundation’s case. The rules are currently scheduled to be effective on April 30, 2012.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is also a party in the case, but is not party to the Foundation’s motion.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, is assisting thousands of employees in nearly 200 cases nationwide. Its web address is www.nrtw.org.

The labor reform story of the year is unfolding in Indiana, which Republicans who dominate the legislature are trying to make the nation’s 23rd right-to-work state. Democrats are resorting to the old run-and-hide ploy, but this could be a huge economic boon to the Hoosier State.

Big Labor portrays right to work as a radical change, but it merely lets individual workers decide if they want to join a union. In non-right-to-work states, workers typically must pay union dues once their worksite is organized—whether they want to pay or not. This enhances union clout and the cash to dominate state politics.

Many industrial and manufacturing businesses only consider right-to-work states as locales for expanding their operations. The nearest right-to-work state in the Midwest is Iowa, so Indiana could set itself further apart from such high-tax, unionized havens as Illinois and Michigan.

According to Chief Executive Magazine’s annual CEO survey, Indiana has climbed to sixth from 16th among state business climates, thanks to reforms since 2004 under Governor Mitch Daniels. But the state’s biggest liability remains its labor market. A Forbes survey last year ranked Indiana 34th in business climate, partially because of a dismal 44th rank in labor “supply,” which includes unionization.

Democrats in the state House played hooky for three days last week in an effort to deny a quorum for voting on the law. They returned to work yesterday after Democratic leader B. Patrick Bauer acknowledged that they “can’t stay out forever.” House members face penalties of $1,000 per day for walkouts longer than three days, so the obstruction could get expensive.

House Republicans have scheduled a vote for Tuesday morning, though Democrats may once again try to split town. Democrats say their vanishing stunt is merely to give Hoosier voters time to consider the measure, but this is hardly the state’s first brush with union reforms. In 1995 the legislature passed a right-to-work law for teachers over the veto of then Democrat Governor Evan Bayh. Right to work was also debated for a time last year, but Republicans decided to press a state-wide school choice reform.

Similar legislation passed a committee of the state Senate on Monday. Unions have spent heavily on TV and radio ads to scare up opposition, and a handful of Republicans are still on the fence, though not enough to kill the bill if Democrats show up to provide a quorum.

The last state to pass a right-to-work law was Oklahoma in 2001. New Hampshire Republicans tried last year, but their bill was vetoed by Democrat Governor John Lynch. If Indiana joins the club, it would send a message that even voters in industrial states realize that their overall business climate must take precedence over union power. If President Obama really wants to revive U.S. manufacturing and exports, he’d make all of America right-to-work. But Indiana would be a splendid new precedent.

(Source:  November-December 2011 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter)

Early this year, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) infuriated the union hierarchy, in his own state and nationally, when he introduced legislation (S.B.11) that would abolish forced union dues for teachers and many other public employees and also sharply limit the scope of government union monopoly bargaining.

In response, teacher union bosses in Madison, Milwaukee, and other cities called teachers out on illegal strikes so they could stage angry protests at the state capitol and at legislators’ residences.

Government union militants issued dozens of death threats against Mr. Walker, members of his administration, and their families. Fourteen Big Labor-backed state senators, all Democrats, temporarily fled the state to deny the pro-S.B.11 Senate majority a quorum to pass the bill.

In raucous demonstrations, union bigwigs and their radical followers actually suggested Mr. Walker’s support for public employees’ Right to Work made him similar to Mubarak, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, or even Satan.

(This fall, national AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka gave his personal imprimatur to such ugly vituperation when he likened the Wisconsin governor to “Lucifer” in an interview published in Esquire magazine.)

Thanks in part to public support mobilized by the National Right to Work Committee’s e-mail and telecommunications activities, pro-Right to Work legislators were able to withstand the Big Labor fury and send S.B.11 to Gov. Walker’s desk. On March 11, he signed into law the measure now known as Act 10.

Forced-Unionism Supporters Pumped More Than $40 Million Into 2011 ‘Recall’ Elections

Act 10, formally known as the Budget Repair Act of 2011, took effect in June after fending off a union boss-inspired legal challenge in state court.

Act 10 now protects most public employees from being fired for refusal to bankroll an unwanted union, but leaves untouched the forced-dues privileges of most public safety and transportation union bosses.

“Despite its unfortunate exclusions, this law represents a step forward for public employees’ free choice,” said Committee President Mark Mix.

“Not surprisingly, union bigwigs are out for revenge against Mr. Walker and the legislators who helped pass the Budget Repair Act.”

As part of its ongoing campaign to obtain vengeance and ultimately repeal the Budget Repair Act, early this year Big Labor launched petition campaigns for “recall” elections of many Senate supporters of the measure.

In August, special recall elections in which pro-forced unionism candidates challenged six pro-Right to Work senators took place. Three union-label Democrat senators who had opposed Act 10, and temporarily fled the state to stop it from passing, also faced recall votes this summer.

Union bigwigs and their Democratic allies pumped more than $40 million into the nine state Senate races.

In the end, the unprecedentedly expensive legislative recall push by Big Labor enjoyed some success, as two of the six pro-Act 10 senators went down to defeat, while all three forced-unionism senators held on to their seats. However, the union political machine fell short of capturing the three seats it needed to relegate pro-Act 10 Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (Juneau) to minority status and reassume control of the chamber.

Democratic Mayor: Under Act 10, Milwaukee Will Save ‘At Least $25 Million a Year’

And that same month, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Scott Walker’s Democratic opponent in 2010 and a bitter foe of Act 10, publicly admitted that, thanks to this very legislation, his city would save “at least $25 million a year — and potentially as much as $36 million in 2012 . . . .”

In addition to significantly reducing the fiscal strain on local governments, Act 10 has enabled Wisconsin to eliminate, without increasing taxes, a gaping state budget deficit that was projected this February to reach $3.6 billion over two years.

Finally, unlike localities in a number of other states in the Midwest and elsewhere where politicians have refused to take on government union bosses’ monopolistic special privileges, Wisconsin cities, towns and counties are not being required to resort to massive layoffs to stay solvent.

Despite all the good news that has emerged over the past few months, union officials in Wisconsin and nationwide remain as determined as ever to overturn Act 10 and reinstate compulsory union dues and fees for all types of state and local public employees.

A Huge Setback For Ohio, But a Pyrrhic Victory For Union Officials

And in 2012 Big Labor intends to continue pouring workers’ dues money into expensive recall election campaigns as part of its ongoing program to kill Act 10. First on the new list of recall targets is Scott Walker himself.

In November, Wisconsin union bosses and their allied politicians officially launched a two-month drive to collect the roughly 540,000 signatures needed to force Mr. Walker into a recall election next spring. Several prominent state Democrats, including Mr. Barrett, are openly considering running against Mr. Walker should the recall take place.

Meanwhile, in another Midwestern state that was a 2011 battleground over government forced unionism, taxpayers have already lost.

This fall, union bosses from across the country spent upwards of $50 million to forestall enforcement of an Ohio public-sector labor law reform package enacted the same month as the Badger State’s and similar in key regards.

Ohio’s S.B.5 included provisions protecting the Right to Work of all categories of state and local employees, including public-safety and transportation workers. It also reduced the scope of government union bosses’ monopoly-bargaining privileges in several other ways.

Big Labor first stopped S.B.5 from taking effect, and then dipped deep into its forced dues-funded treasuries to outspend proponents vastly and kill the measure in the cradle. This was a huge setback for Ohio — and, at the same time, a pyrrhic victory for union strategists.

The tactics to which Big Labor resorted in Ohio have a strong potential to backfire on the union brass in the near future.

Major School, Public-Safety Layoffs Appear Inevitable In Buckeye State Next Year

The TV and radio ads with which the union hierarchy flooded the Ohio airwaves from September through early November successfully diverted public attention from what S.B.5 would actually do.

“You would never have guessed it from the Big Labor ads, but S.B.5 would not have reduced at all the amount of money the state of Ohio doles out to local schools and police and fire departments,” noted Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“Had it gone into effect, however, S.B.5 would have made it far less difficult for local elected officials to spend whatever money they did have at their disposal prudently, so as to provide taxpayers good services at a reasonable cost.

“And it would have protected each individual public servant’s freedom to join or not join a union.

“Now Big Labor has quashed this reform, but clearly not convinced Ohio voters their already high taxes should be even higher. That means Ohio localities, unlike Wisconsin localities, will almost certainly have to resort to mass layoffs over the next few months to keep from going broke.

“If union chiefs’ ongoing bid to subject Scott Walker to a recall election succeeds in Wisconsin, by the time he has to face the voters next year he will be able to point to a quite telling contrast between the outlook in Ohio, where Big Labor ultimately got its way in 2011, and in his state, where it didn’t.

“The contrast will not be helpful for the union political operatives who are seeking to punish Mr. Walker.

“And over time, residents of other fiscally troubled government union stronghold states will be able to see for themselves who was telling the truth in Ohio and Wisconsin, and act accordingly. That’s why, all in all, 2011 has been a hopeful year for America.”

Roger Pilon, a constitutional scholar from the CATO Institute, makes a compelling case that President Obama’s outrageous appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are unconstitutional:

All of Obama’s appointments yesterday are illegal under the Constitution. And, in addition, as too little noted by the media, his appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is legally futile. Under the plain language of the Dodd-Frank Act that created the CFPB, Cordray will have no authority whatsoever.

Yesterday, Professors John Yoo and Richard Epstein, writing separately, made it crystal clear that the president, under Article II, section 2, may make temporary recess appointments, but only when the Senate is in recess. Add in Article I, section 5, and it’s plain that the Senate is presently not in recess, just as it wasn’t under Senate Democrats when George W. Bush wanted to make recess appointments. The difference here is that Bush respected those constitutional provisions while Obama — never a constitutional law professor but only a part-time instructor – ignores them as politically inconvenient. Attempts by Obama’s apologists to say the Senate is not in session are pure sophistry and, in the case of Harry Reid, rank hypocrisy, as this morning’s Wall Street Journal brings out.

But clear beyond the slightest doubt is the language of the statute (itself unconstitutional on any number of grounds not relevant here). As my colleague Mark Calabria wrote yesterday, “authorities under the Act remain with the Treasury Secretary until the Director is ‘confirmed by the Senate.’”  A recess appointment, even if it were constitutional, is not a Senate confirmation. There is simply no wiggle room in that language that gives Cordray any authority, as litigation will soon make plain.

So what is this? It’s politics — Chicago politics, plain and simple. If any doubt remained, three years into his presidency, that Obama is a master demagogue, with class warfare as his central tool, this incident should dispel it.

From the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation:

Worker Rights Advocate Blasts Obama’s Unprecedented Recess Appointments to the NLRB

The President’s legally dubious NLRB recess appointments pave the way for another year of forced-unionism giveaways

Washington, DC (January 4, 2012) – Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s unprecedented NLRB recess appointments:

“Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB, despite there being no formal recess of Congress, show just how much this Administration is in the pocket of Big Labor. In the last two years the Obama Labor Board has repeatedly enacted one power grab after another on behalf of union bosses, to the detriment of the rights of individual employees – especially those who wish to refrain from union activities. The President’s legally dubious NLRB recess appointments pave the way for another year of forced-unionism giveaways.

“Union bosses know their coercive agenda is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people, which is why they’ve turned to unelected administrative agencies like the NLRB to push through much of what they cannot get through Congress. That’s what makes these appointments all the more offensive in the face of Congress affirmatively taking action to block recess nominations.”

National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys are already exploring possible legal challenges to these unprecedented recess appointments in defiance of Congress.

This power grab by a desperate president gives Big Labor control over the NLRB, which was supposedly established to referee labor relations disputes.  Obama’s actions will make Big Labor the Harlem Trotters of labor disputes. Also, it will create a legal battle with Republicans in congress.  A battle the former constitutional law professor seems to seek.

From the Hill:

The recess appointments President Obama announced Wednesday are “almost certain” to be challenged in court … The recess appointments broke with legal precedent, as they while the Senate is holding regular pro forma sessions. Republicans insist the Senate has not been in recess thanks to the seconds-long sessions held every few days, but White House attorneys determined the procedural move is a gimmick that can be ignored by the president.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) blasted the move as an “unprecedented power grab” and said he expects “the courts will find the appointment to be illegitimate.”

The gambit puts the bureau in “uncertain legal territory,” according to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

From the Washington Times:

Obama defies Congress with ‘recess’ picks; Nominations could provoke constitutional fight

Pushing the limits of his recess appointment powers, President Obama on Wednesday bypassed the Senate to install three members of the National Labor Relations Board and a director for the controversial new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – moves Republicans said amounted to unconstitutional power grabs

Big Labor applauds, from In These Times:

Obama Makes Recess Appointments to NLRB. Is It Enough for AFL-CIO Endorsement?

Today, President Obama made three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—Democrats Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, as well as Republican Terry Flynn. Without the appointments, the federal agency, which mediate labor disputes and oversees union elections, wouldn’t have had a quorum to issue valid rulings. (He also made a much more high-profile appointment of Richard Corday to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in order to make that regulator functional as well.)

With the recess appointments, the board will be able to make key decisions that affect American workers.

The speed in making the appointments may be a move by the White House to gain the support of the AFL-CIO, which has yet to endorse Obama, unlike other major unions like AFSCME, NEA, UFCW and SEIU. It’s unclear as well if the AFL-CIO’s delay in endorsing Obama, or AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s recent call for greater political independence for organized labor played any role in pressuring the White House to quickly make the recess appointments to both the CFPB and NLRB.

The move may give the AFL-CIO necessary cover to endorse President Obama, and offer active support on the ground during the election season.

But the labor federation, and other unions that have yet to endorse Obama, may be looking to see if the president can pass several other tests this year …State legislators in Indiana are planning to bring right-to-work legislation to a vote in the Indiana legislature possibly as early as this week. It’s unclear if President Obama is going to make any public statement about the legislation, which organized labor strongly opposes, in this key battleground state

Late last month, when House Republicans floated the idea of a federal pay freeze as part of a temporary deal to extend the payroll tax cuts, Democratic Senators strongly objected. However, the White House did not object publicly to the freeze being in the deal.

“Federal employees are working with severely limited resources,” National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley wrote in a letter to Congress today. “To ask them to bear such a disproportionate additional burden is unfair and unacceptable.”

(Source:  November-December 2011 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter)

In his writings for academic and “labor studies” journals over the years, union lawyer Craig Becker has repeatedly bemoaned the fact that U.S. labor law “does not,” as he once bluntly explained, “require employees in a plant to select a bargaining agent, if they do not want to.”

Employees’ only choice, Mr. Becker has suggested time and again, should be over which set of union officials get “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining power to negotiate their wages, benefits, and work rules.

Thanks to President Barack Obama, Mr. Becker is in a position as 2011 winds down to begin implementing his extremist vision of what federal labor policy should be.

In March 2010, Mr. Obama did the bidding of the union hierarchy by “recess” appointing Mr. Becker to the powerful National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Mr. Becker and Chairman Mark Pearce, another ex-union lawyer installed on the NLRB by Mr. Obama, now constitute a radical Big Labor majority on a rump, three-member NLRB. (Two of the board’s five seats are currently vacant.)

And late this November Mr. Pearce and Mr. Becker okayed changes to the current procedures for NLRB certification of unions that will, in practice, significantly undermine workers’ right to choose against monopolistic union representation.

The Obama NLRB originally planned to go even further to gut workers’ “choice to remain unrepresented” — a choice Mr. Becker has indicated he doesn’t think should be legally protected at all. But intense public opposition, mobilized by the National Right to Work Committee and other allied groups, evidently influenced the NLRB to temper its haste somewhat.

Employers May Soon Be Forced To Hand Employee Phone Numbers, E-Mail Addresses to Union Dons

The revised proposal advanced by the Pearce-Becker team over the vigorous opposition of the third NLRB member, Brian Hayes, would sharply reduce the current median time frame of 38 days between the filing of a union “representation petition” and the conduct of a union election.

The effect of such a change, as former NLRB member and Right to Work supporter Peter Kirsanow has put it, will be to “utterly and completely deprive employers of the ability to communicate vital information to their employees regarding their rights and the effects of unionization.”

Of course, once employers are denied enough time to make their case, employees will ipso facto be denied the opportunity to hear both sides of the story before voting on unionization.

“Apologists for President Obama’s NLRB brazenly claim that the ‘ambush’ election scheme it is now implementing step by step represents only a few modest changes to current practice,” noted Committee President Mark Mix.

“But this is nothing other than an underhanded means of realizing the very objective Craig Becker lauded in his published writings before his NLRB appointment: Workers’ ‘choice to remain unrepresented’ would be rendered almost meaningless.

“And the ‘ambush’ elections just rubber-stamped by the NLRB are only the beginning. The NLRB is still considering a host of other harmful proposals.

“These include new rules mandating that the employer hand over employee phone numbers and e-mail addresses to union organizers at the outset of each ‘ambush’ election campaign.”

Committee Will Consider ‘All Appropriate Means’ to Protect Independent Employees

Mr. Mix vowed that the Committee would consider “all appropriate means” to protect independent employees from the Obama NLRB.

“Unfortunately, as long as Barack Obama remains President and retains his veto power, it will be difficult to rein in the NLRB,” he acknowledged.

“But at the very least, Right to Work supporters on Capitol Hill can and must prevent Mr. Obama from placing another union stooge on the NLRB to replace Mr. Becker once his ‘recess’ appointment ends this winter.”

November-December 2011 issue headlines:

Capitol Hill Support For Right to Work Growing — More Senators, Representatives Cosponsor Compulsory-Dues Repeal

Obama Bureaucrats Bolster Monopolistic Unionism — Labor Board Chipping Away at ‘Choice to Remain Unrepresented’

United Way Chief: ‘Please Support Your AFL-CIO’ — Brian Gallagher Prods Charity Workers to Assist Union Lobbyists

Lafe Solomon ‘Did What IAM Bosses Told Him To’ — E-mails Reveal Why Top NLRB Lawyer ‘Screwed up the U.S. Economy’

College Graduates Flock to Right to Work States — States Seeking a ‘Brain Gain’ Should Bar Compulsory Union Dues

All in All, ‘a Hopeful Year For America’ — Big Labor Bosses Fume as Benefits of Wisconsin Reform Spread

As the Education Action Group notes:

The CCEA is not the first teachers union to form its own insurance company and pressure local school boards into purchasing that company’s overpriced coverage.

The Maine Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, established its own insurance entity, the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust, in 1993.

The Benefits Trust “ facilitates” the purchase of employee health insurance for Maine’s public schools, essentially selling them coverage provided by the state’s largest carrier, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

Nearly every school district in the state has been lulled into joining this system over the years, according to officials in several Maine school districts. The Benefits Trust/Anthem scam, which discourages outside competition, has driven insurance prices through the roof for Maine schools.

The Michigan Education Association owns its own insurance company, called the Michigan Education Special Services Association (MESSA). For years local union negotiators have pressedschool boards to purchase MESSA employee health insurance, despite its high cost.

As a result, roughly half of the districts in the state carry some form of MESSA insurance, and many are struggling with the continually rising cost of premiums. As in Maine, many Michigan school officials have accused MESSA of refusing to provide insurance claim records that are necessary to attract bids from competitors.

The Michigan Education Association also receives annual kickbacks from MESSA, in exchange for effective representation at the school board bargaining table. In 2009, MESSA reported net assets of $259 million. In 2010, MESSA shared $5 million with the MEA.

The Wisconsin Education Association Council also created an insurance entity, called WEA Trust, several decades ago. For years local union negotiators pressed school boards to purchase employee health insurance from WEA Trust, often at a very high price.

At one point, about three-quarters of the state’s school districts purchased insurance from WEA Trust, helping the union-affiliated insurance company build assets worth $674 million in 2008, according to government records.

EAG published a 2010 analysis of WEA Trust, which revealed that most of the school districts in the state with the highest insurance costs are clients of WEA Trust. Many school administrators said it was very difficult to convince their local unions to allow them to seek bids for less expensive health coverage.

All three of those union-affiliated insurance companies have attracted close scrutiny since a wave of reform-minded lawmakers were elected in November 2010.

Lawmakers in Maine, Wisconsin and Michigan have recently taken steps to give school districts more freedom to accept competitive bids for employee health insurance, thereby ending or at least eroding the expensive monopoly held by union-affiliated insurance companies.

In Clark County, that job is being left to an arbitrator. All the students and taxpayers can do is hope the arbitrator does the right thing for the school district and community, even if that angers the self-serving union.

The Obama administration was saved from yet another pre-election embarrassment late last week when the National Labor Relations Board dropped its suit against Boeing’s efforts to build an aircraft manufacturing plant in South Carolina.

Yes, it couldn’t get much crazier than in the middle of a recession when this administration still wants to pour billions of tax dollars into creating jobs — at least public sector ones — that a federal agency would hold one of the nation’s leading employers hostage. But that’s exactly what was going on when the NLRB halted Boeing’s efforts in response to a case brought by the Machinists union.

The union had charged that Boeing wanted to open the new plant in South Carolina in retaliation for past union strikes at its Washington state plant. And since the Obama-era NLRB is a wholly-owned toady of organized labor, it accepted at face value the union’s allegations.

Of course, Boeing in the end was held hostage until it ransomed its North Charleston plant by approving a new four-year contract with the Machinists in Washington state where the firm also promised to build a new version of the 737 aircraft. And, not surprisingly, the Machinists dropped their bogus charges.

And that’s really at the heart about how this particular cast of characters at the NLRB operates.

Lafe Solomon, acting general counsel for the board, said he always preferred a settlement. In fact about 90 percent of the cases brought to the board are resolved through settlement — that is if you call it a “settlement” when, faced with this kind of relentless federal assault, a private firm finally cries “uncle.”

Anywhere else it would be called thuggery. But under this administration — with its every move favoring its organized union base — it’s called justice.

What a sham, or scam, or choose a synonym. On Wednesday, the International Association of Machinists approved a new contract with Boeing in which the company agreed to make its 737 Max jet with union labor in Washington state. Yesterday, after getting the machinist all-clear, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dropped its lawsuit against Boeing’s investment in South Carolina.

Has there ever been a more blatant case of a supposedly independent agency siding with a union over management in collective bargaining?

Boeing says the new contract wasn’t tied directly to a settlement of the NLRB complaint, and that it always made sense to build the 737 Max in Renton, Washington because its work force has experience on the current 737 and offers natural efficiencies.

But it’s hard to resist the conclusion that Boeing felt obliged to make the agreement to save its more than $1 billion investment in South Carolina, where it is building 787s. Boeing might have won a legal battle in the end, but first it would have to run through an administrative law judge, then the politicized and Obama-stacked NLRB, and only then would it get to an appellate court. Meanwhile, its investment was in jeopardy and its legal bill was rising.

As for the NLRB, its decision to drop the case so quickly after the machinists cut their deal exposes how politically motivated the Boeing suit was. The NLRB is supposed to be a fair-minded referee in labor disputes, making sure neither side breaks the law. But the board put its fist squarely on the union side to make Boeing pay a price for moving one of its 787 assembly lines to a right-to-work state, to make sure Boeing never did that again, and to demonstrate to any other unionized company that its investment is at risk if it makes the same decision.

By dropping the case, the Obama team at the NLRB can claim it delivered those lessons without ever having to contest them in court. Oh, and Democrats running for Senate in right-to-work states, like Tim Kaine in Virginia, are spared from having to endorse a union position that is unpopular because it costs their states jobs.

The damage here goes well beyond Boeing, which presumably understands the tradeoffs. The NLRB is exposed as one more federal agency that can’t be trusted to make honest decisions. The ability of the 21 right-to-work states, which passed such laws under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, to attract businesses from pro-union states will also be eroded. The AFL-CIO may cheer that message, but in practice the result is likely to be that more companies simply send jobs overseas where there’s no NLRB. Congratulations.

What if there were emails showing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor coordinating with Attorney General Eric Holder and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on how the Obama administration should fight judicial challenges to Obamacare?

At a bare minimum, Justice Sotomayor would have to recuse herself from the case, she might be impeached, and Holder would face serious ethics questions as well. But such emails do not exist … concerning Obamacare. When it comes to the National Labor Relations Board suit against Boeing, that is a different story.

Cause of Action, a government accountability nonprofit, has obtained emails through a Freedom of Information Act request showing then-NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Liebman, NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon and NLRB Public Affairs Director Nancy Cleeland coordinating the board’s response to its own decision to sue Boeing for opening a factory in the right to work state of South Carolina.

But, since the NLRB is an independent agency, shouldn’t they be allowed to coordinate about ongoing litigation? Yes and no. The NLRB is supposed to be an independent agency, capable of creating rules, enforcing them and adjudicating them.

But because the NLRB has within itself all of the governing powers our Founding Fathers believed should be separated (legislative, executive and judicial), its creators also wrote rules making it illegal for board employees who perform different functions from communicating with each other under certain circumstances.

Specifically, 29 C.F.R. 102.126 and 29 C.F.R. 102.127 forbid a member of the board from requesting or “knowingly caus[ing] to be made” any ex parte communications with any interested person outside the agency relevant to the proceeding.

That same regulation also forbids any “interested person outside this agency” from making any ex parte communications to board members.

Most importantly, 29 C.F.R 102.127 specifically defines the phrase “person outside this agency” to include “the general counsel or his representative when prosecuting an unfair labor practice proceeding before the board pursuant to section 10(b) of the act.”

The regulations define an ex parte communication as “an oral written communication not on the public record with respect to which reasonable prior notice to all parties is not given.”

The emails Cause of Action obtained would seem to be covered by these laws.

Solomon is the general counsel. He is pursuing an unfair labor practice proceeding against Boeing before the board pursuant to 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act.

Liebman was the chairwoman of the NLRB. Any decision made by the administrative law judge hearing the Boeing case Soloman is arguing could be appealed to Liebman’s board, much as lower court decisions are appealed to the Supreme Court. So all communications between Solomon and Liebman about the Boeing suit would be illegal under the NLRA.

Cause of Action has obtained at least four emails sent to both Solomon and Liebman explicitly about the Boeing litigation. There is also a fifth email about the Boeing litigation, sent from Liebman herself, to Cleeland and Solomon. All of these communications appear to violate NLRB’s own rules.

Cause of Action has asked NLRB’s inspector general to investigate the apparently illegal coordination by Liebman, Cleeland and Solomon on the Boeing suit. But Congress must do more.

It is bad enough that Congress has eviscerated the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine by ceding away its governing powers to administrative agencies like the NLRB. Congress should not now allow those agencies to ignore what few protections have been left in place.

The Washington Post reports:

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees voted Tuesday to officially endorse President Obama in the 2012 election.

Union officials have already said they planned to spend upwards of $100 million to help Obama win reelection, so the endorsement itself is not a surprise.

Tuesday’s vote was so important to Obama’s team that campaign manager Jim Messina attended the meeting. He told the AFSCME board the union’s backing “demonstrates that its workers know President Obama is the only one willing to make the hard choices.”