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.

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.

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.”

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.

After carrying their water for three years and enacting a government-run health care program that will give the SEIU union bosses the opportunity to forcibly unionize hundreds of thousands of health care employees, the SEIU has said thank you to the president by giving him an early endorsement for re-election campaign.

Secretary Hilda Solis’ staff and public comments at AFL-CIO meetings, her recent disparagement of Tea Party members, and her big Labor Ohio comments make it clear that DOL is closed for everyone but Bug Labor Bosses.  November’s Corporate Counsel article provides some new examples:

She is not just pro-labor, but doctrinaire, says Ray Haynes, a former Republican senator who sat on the Health and Human Services budget subcommittee with Solis when they were both [CA] state senators. “She was the tool of organized labor in the legislature,” says Haynes. If they needed something, they went to her, he says: “And she did it every time, regardless of whether it was a good idea or not.”

Aided by $80 million in stimulus funds, the agency ramped up its army of field personnel in 2010—focusing on the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) and OSHA. Solis added 300 wage and hour investigators—an increase of more than a third—and 100 OSHA inspectors.

The agency has recently turned its attention to businesses that allegedly cheat full-time workers by improperly labeling them as independent contractors. Not only do employers not have to pay benefits, but they can avoid paying overtime, unemployment insurance, and taxes as well.

In September, Solis announced a triple threat … The Labor Department, 11 states, and the Internal Revenue Service will begin sharing information in order to cut down on the practice. The department signed memorandums of understanding with the IRS and the states—including Connecticut, Utah, and Hawaii, among others—that will give each independent authority a crack at collecting from employers charged with dodging the law.

“I think about it as the traffic cop approach to law enforcement,” says top Labor Department lawyer Patricia Smith. Drivers who are tempted to speed will ease up on the gas pedal while driving through an area known to be heavily patrolled, she says. By the same token, Smith hopes the coordinated enforcement effort will have a broadened effect on employer behavior.

Whatever the issue—the Labor Department is pushing ahead with an aggressive and comprehensive agenda. That push will continue for at least as long as this president remains in office.

For the last few months, Boeing has been clashing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over its decision to locate a plant in South Carolina. The NLRB argues that the airplane manufacturer illegally moved work from union factories in Washington state to a new $1 billion facility in the right-to-work Palmetto State.

NLRB lawyers maintain this is straightforward retaliation against union workers, based on comments allegedly made by Boeing executives themselves. Business leaders have denounced this as an unprecedented bit of federal pro-union advocacy, with the House of Representatives last week voting to halt the Boeing case and others like it.

The battle may soon intensify. Federal financial disclosure forms reveal that Craig Becker, a key union-friendly vote on the NLRB, owned stock in Boeing at the beginning of this year. Becker is one of federal agency’s Democratic board members.

According to documents obtained by the National Right to Work Committee, as of January 2011 Becker owned between $1,001 and $15,000 in Boeing stock, earning between $201 and $1,000 in dividends. This particular public financial disclosure report does not require more specific information.

The disclosure already has people detecting a potential conflict of interest. “The fact that Mr. Becker owns or owned stock in Boeing could be extremely detrimental to the NLRB’s case against that company,” says F. Vincent Vernuccio, labor policy counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “If Mr. Becker currently owns stock in Boeing then he should recuse himself from hearing the case.”

Any recusal could imperil the NLRB’s ability to take the Boeing case at all. Since former member Wilma Liebman’s term expired, the normally five-member board is down to just three members. “The Supreme Court recently ruled that the NLRB must have three members or there will be no quorum,” says Vernuccio. “If Becker is not able to sit on the case there can be no decision for Boeing.”

Another labor policy watcher familiar with Becker’s Boeing investment acknowledges it is a relatively small amount of money. “But how big does it have to be before there can be a conflict of interest?” he asks. “It’s not like there is a minimum where it would be okay.”

Becker, a perennial labor lightning rod, has faced calls to recuse himself before. A former lawyer for the AFL-CIO and SEIU, Becker said in a footnote to a June 2010 ruling that he would recuse  himself from cases in which either of those unions was a party. Becker cited compliance with the Obama administration’s ethics policy as his reason for bowing out of those decisions.

But Becker also said that he would not recuse himself from cases involving chapters and local affiliates, arguing that they are separate and distinct legal entities from the national unions. Congressional Republicans blasted this as a meaningless concession,  since most cases he would hear arise from the locals, from which the national unions collect dues.

“There’s clear reason to question Becker’s impartiality,” a spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told the Washington Postlast year. “His former employer, SEIU International, tightly controls its local chapters. With such gaping loopholes, the Obama administration’s ethics pledge Becker signed isn’t worth the paper it was printed on.”

Last month, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) sent Becker a letter asking him what role he may have had in drafting an SEIU manual instructing union organizers on how to pressure businesses. Critics have called the document the SEIU’s “Intimidation Manual.” During his Senate confirmation hearings, Becker acknowledged providing advice on organizing and contract campaigns.

Becker failed to win Senate confirmation when Republicans — joined by some Democrats from less union-friendly states — blocked his nomination. The Wall Street Journal dubbed him “Andy Stern’s go-to guy” and “labor’s secret weapon.” Becker received a recess appointment from President Obama. His term will therefore expire at the end of this year.

The Boeing disclosure will only add fuel to the fire. The Boeing case is arguably the biggest labor controversy of the Obama administration, and Becker is seen as emblematic of this White House’s tilt in favor of unions against businesses in a challenging economic environment.

Vernuccio doesn’t think selling the stock will get Becker off the hook. “If Becker sold the stock after the case was brought this could point to more serious ethical issues, showing he knew the case could hurt Boeing stock,” he says. “Either way Becker’s ownership puts a new wrinkle in the case and may affect its outcome.”

It will be difficult for the president to get more NLRB members confirmed because Republicans have increased their ranks in the Senate since the filibuster against Becker, and several Democratic senators from right-to-work states are up for reelection next November. Additional recess appointments are likely also out of the question, because House Speaker John Boehner has pledged to block further recesses for the remainder of Obama’s term.

Most previous demands that Becker recuse himself from such cases have fallen on deaf ears, however. (A card check case was an exception.) In fact, critics have pressed him to remove himself from the Boeing case before because the machinists union filing the suit is an AFL-CIO affiliate. The NLRB’s inspector general has ruled in favor of Becker on these questions in the past.

The Boeing holding gives critics yet another shot at Becker. Even advocates for the workers of the world have to watch out for their stock portfolios.

Principled U.S. House Leadership Can Thwart Big Labor Power Grab

(Source: September 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

Over the next few weeks, the U.S. House will have the opportunity to turn back a Big Labor-inspired bureaucratic rewrite of the procedures through which union officials acquire monopoly-bargaining privileges under the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

If self-avowedly pro-Right to Work House leaders and rank-and-file members blow this opportunity, another one won’t come for a long time.

In June 2010, President Obama’s two appointees on the three-member National Mediation Board (NMB) instituted an RLA rule change making it far easier for airline and railroad union chiefs to acquire monopoly power to negotiate employees’ pay, benefits, and work rules.

NMB members Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, the two Obama-selected bureaucrats favoring the rule change, are both ex-union bosses. They overturned decades-old procedures previously supported by GOP and Democratic presidential administrations alike.

Union Monopoly Bargaining Hurts Employees and Businesses

Federally-imposed “exclusive” (monopoly) union bargaining undermines efficiency and productivity by forcing employers to reward equally their most productive and least productive employees.

The damage is compounded when the employees already hurt by being forced to accept a union bargaining agent opposed to their interests are then forced to pay dues or fees to the unwanted union.

Fortunately, Right to Work laws in 22 states, where 39% of the private-sector workforce is employed, prohibit the collection of forced dues from the vast majority of employees wherever they are in effect.

However, in 1951, when Congress amended the RLA to impose for the first time forced union dues and fees on airline and railroad employees, Big Labor U.S. senators and representatives denied states the option to protect employees’ Right to Work.

Ever since, union bosses have had the government-granted power to get airline and railroad employees fired for refusal to bankroll a union in all 50 states, including Right to Work states.

Partly in order to compensate for the unique privileges airline/railroad union officials enjoy, even relative to other union officials, federal labor policy has long set a somewhat higher bar for RLA-covered union bosses to acquire forced-union-dues powers.

Until last year, airline and railroad union kingpins needed the backing of the majority of all of a firm’s employees in a “craft or class,” not merely the majority of those who vote, to be installed as employees’ monopoly-bargaining agent.

The Hoglander-Puchala bureaucratic rewrite of longstanding RLA procedures enables union chiefs to get monopoly power as long as a majority of the employees who vote back them.

House Showdown With Big Labor-Controlled White House And Senate Now Underway

In March, International Association of Machinists (IAM/AFL-CIO) union bosses took advantage of this rule to grab monopoly control over more than 1900 AirTran employees, even though 66% had not voted for unionization.

Fortunately, the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2011 (H.R.658), adopted by the House the following month, would overturn the Hoglander-Puchala scheme and restore the higher bar for union monopoly bargaining.

Before final passage of H.R.658, intense lobbying by National Right to Work Committee members persuaded a 220-206 House majority to defeat an amendment backed by Big Labor Democrats and Big Labor-appeasing Republicans endorsing Mr. Hoglander and Ms. Puchala’s power grab.

This House vote set the stage for a now unfolding House showdown with the Obama Administration and union-label Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) Senate over RLA union monopoly bargaining.

Right to Work Vice President Urges Members to Keep Contacting Speaker Boehner

“President Obama and Majority Leader Reid claim they won’t go along with any FAA reauthorization that prohibits the NMB from greasing the skids for union monopoly bargaining over transportation employees,” noted Committee Vice President Mary King.

“But if the House over the next month or two simply refuses to authorize FAA funding for Fiscal 2012, which begins October 1, and beyond, without an amendment restoring the RLA rules that prevailed until 2010, then it’s very likely the President and Mr. Reid will have to change their tune.

“Big Labor Democrats know the American public doesn’t want to see the FAA shut down for an extended period, as it already was briefly this summer, just so airline and railroad union bosses can grab even more monopoly power than they already have.

“I urge Committee members to keep contacting House Speaker John Boehner [R-Ohio] at 202-225-0600 to make sure he knows that, too.”

New York Times Pundit: Reckless Obama NLRB ‘Paralyzing’ Economy

(Source: September 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

For years, New York Times commentator Joe Nocera has been one of the most relentless champions of government regulation of business and “stimulus” spending in the American media.

When even Mr. Nocera starts agreeing with critics of a presidential administration that it has gone “too far” in interfering with the decision-making of businesses and their employees, that administration clearly has a serious problem.

Therefore, Mr. Nocera’s August 23 Times column about the ongoing effort by Acting National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Lafe Solomon to dictate where businesses may or may not expand should have set off alarm bells at the White House.

Mr. Solomon’s immediate target is Boeing and its employees in Right to Work South Carolina. In April, he filed a complaint against the company, America’s biggest exporter of manufactured products, for initiating a new 787 Dreamliner assembly line in North Charleston.

As Mr. Nocera observed in his column bemoaning this Solomon power grab, “Boeing’s aircraft assembly has long been done by its unionized work force in Puget Sound, Wash.” Indeed, seven Dreaminers will still be assembled each month in Puget Sound.

“The South Carolina facility,” Mr. Nocera explained, “is a hedge against the possibility” that International Association of Machinists (IAM) union kingpins will order unionized employees in Puget Sound out on strike, and thus “shut down production of the Dreamliner.”

A ‘Mind-Boggling Stretch’ To Characterize Boeing’s Strategy as ‘Retaliation’

Boeing chose to add its North Charleston line, which will assemble three Dreamliners a month, only after trying assiduously, but unsuccessfully, to negotiate with IAM chieftains a “moratorium on strikes — precisely because it needed to get the airplane into the hands of impatient customers.”

For a company that had no other economically viable way of avoiding recurrences in the future of strikes that have cost its shareholders, employees and clients billions of dollars in the past, the South Carolina expansion was “a perfectly legitimate hedge” that it could make without fear of legal repercussions.

But this spring Mr. Solomon, the man whom President Obama unilaterally installed as acting NLRB general counsel in June 2010, declared that making such a hedge to avoid or at least mitigate multi-billion-dollar revenue losses stemming from disruptive IAM strikes constitutes illegal “retaliation.”

Even for a normally regulation-happy pundit like Mr. Nocera, it is a “mind-boggling stretch” to characterize Boeing’s strategy as “retaliation.”

And that is what the Times columnist finds “so jarring about this case — and not just for Boeing. Without any warning, the rules have changed. Uncertainty has replaced certainty. Other companies have to start wondering what other rules could soon change. It becomes a reason to hold back hiring.”

In short, the Obama NLRB’s aggressive rewriting of federal labor law to benefit the President’s political patrons in the union hierarchy is “paralyzing” job creation.

The Boeing case is currently before an NLRB administrative law judge and could drag on for years.

Right to Work Legislative Staffers Push For Effective Congressional Countermeasures

But National Right to Work Committee officers and members and other Americans concerned about the anti-employee, anti-business, and anti-economic growth impact of the Solomon complaint are fighting back.

“Working together with other citizen groups who share our position on this issue, the Committee aims to bring a halt to the NLRB attack on the 1000 Dreamliner assembly employees already at work in North Charleston and their employer before any more damage is done,” said Committee President Mark Mix.

“The Obama-selected acting general counsel’s action, which has apparent philosophical support from members of the Obama board itself, is outrageous. This action has deeply offended millions of Americans who otherwise hold disparate views about public policy.

“No wonder, then, that there is no shortage of politicians in Congress with ideas about how to derail the Boeing case — some better than others.

“One promising approach is to exercise Congress’s constitutional power over the NLRB budget. Committee legislative staff members are now working with Capitol Hill allies to secure legislative votes this fall on appropriations amendments cutting off funds for pursuit of the NLRB’s Boeing case.

“Better yet would be for Congress to vote to defund the NLRB completely. Back in February, the Committee supported an appropriations amendment by pro-Right to Work Congressman Tom Price [R-Ga.] that would have blocked all taxpayer funding for NLRB operations for the rest of Fiscal 2011.

“It’s bad enough that America’s federal labor laws are strongly biased against the individual employee’s Right to Work. Leaving enforcement of these laws in the hands of forced-unionism ideologues like Lafe Solomon, rather than less partisan Department of Justice attorneys, only makes matters worse.”

Mr. Mix continued: “And the fact is, the Boeing power grab is only one of an array of ways in which the Obama NLRB is now threatening to eviscerate employees’ Right to Work.”

Another ongoing attack on employees’ personal freedom is the “ambush” election proposal expected to be finalized by President Obama’s NLRB bureaucrats within a few weeks after this Right to Work Newsletter edition goes to press.

‘Ambush’ Elections Would Deny Workers a Meaningful Vote

Wilma Liebman, originally appointed to the NLRB by union-label President Bill Clinton and elevated to the NLRB chairmanship by Barack Obama in 2009, and two Obama-appointed board members, Craig Becker and Mark Pearce, officially announced the “ambush” election plan on June 22.

In practice, the proposed changes would eviscerate workers’ right under current law to make a collective choice against union monopoly bargaining in their workplace.

Under federally-authorized union monopoly bargaining, the bosses of a single union wield “exclusive” power to negotiate employees’ pay, benefits, and work rules. Employees who refuse to join the union are denied the freedom to bargain over their job conditions on their own behalf or through another union.

Currently, the NLRB allows an average of 38-40 days from the time an employer is notified that a union is seeking monopoly-bargaining privileges over his or her employees to the time the workplace election over unionization occurs.

Employers often use that relatively brief period of time to make the case to their employees that unionization isn’t in their best interest.

But the “ambush” election rules proposed by the Obama NLRB would shorten the time frame to 10-14 days, or perhaps even less.

Mr. Mix charged: “Effectively, employees would be denied the opportunity to hear both sides of the story before voting on unionization, because employers would be denied enough time to make their case.”

Employee Phone Numbers, E-Mail Addresses Would Be Handed Over to Union Organizers

In addition to denying business owners and managers any real chance to counter union organizers’ claims, the NLRB’s proposed new rules mandate that employee phone numbers and e-mail addresses be handed over to union organizers at the outset of each “ambush” election campaign.

The new rules would also make it even more difficult for independent-minded employees and businesses to challenge election misconduct by union bosses and their henchmen.

“Fortunately, the U.S. House, under the leadership of avowed Right to Work supporter John Boehner [R-Ohio], has the power to cut off funds for implementation of the NLRB ‘ambush’ election scheme as well as for prosecution of the Boeing complaint,” noted Mr. Mix.

“By refusing to vote for a Fiscal 2012 NLRB budget unless it curtails Obama bureaucrats’ worst excesses, the House can actually stop many board abuses without the cooperation of union-label Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-Nev.] or the White House.

“But that will require intestinal fortitude on the part of Speaker Boehner and other House leaders, and ever-intensifying mobilization of Right to Work supporters nationwide.”

Barbara Ivey of the forced unionism state of Oregon and her co-workers were victims of the totalitarian NLRB actions. On August 26^th, as Big Labor Attorney and NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman’s term expired and she slinked back to her Big Labor law practice, the NLRB voted to repeal “DANA rights” in its Lamons Gasket decision.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Mrs. Ivey was invited by the Education & Workforce Committee to testify about her shock that the U.S. government took away her right to a secret ballot, especially since the NLRB had earlier said she had the right and had scheduled the vote only days after the fateful Lamons Gasket decision. She and her fellow employees never got a chance for a secret ballot to vote, and now she will be forced to pay tribute to an SEIU union boss in order to keep her job.

The video above is taken from the Education & Workforce Committee hearing where the Obama NLRB usurpation of power and destruction of individual liberty is on display. Because of this decision numerous secret ballots that have already cast in workplaces across the country will never be counted. The ballots reportedly are currently stored at NLRB, then will eventually be shredded or disposed of in another manner.

To borrow from the Wisconsin union thugs, “This is what DEMOCRACY looks like” in an Obama Administration!

(NOTE: What were known as “DANA Rights” occurred when the NLRB voted 3-2 to overturned its policy of denying employees any access to a secret ballot vote over unionization after a union is recognized pursuant to the controversial “card check” organizing process. The ruling came in two high-profile cases brought by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys for employees at two automotive suppliers (Dana and Metaldyne) who found themselves organized by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. “DANA Rights” required the NLRB to give employees notice that they have 45 days after a card check recognition to file a decertification petition to obtain an election to vote out the unwanted union. Interestingly, these rights were granted prospectively, but removed retrospectively by the NLRB. )