NRTW files first legal challenge against Obama’s Unconstitutional NLRB scheme

On January 13, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

From The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation press relase:

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.

 

 

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Posted in: Big Labor Payback, Forced-Dues for Politics, NLRB, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert
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For Fear of Stating the Obvious: Obama shreds Constitution

On January 7, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

The former head of the National Labor Relations Board Peter Schaumber is letting the world know that President Obama was willing to shred the Constitution and make “recess appointments” while Congress was in session in order to please the union bosses.

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Posted in: Big Labor Payback, NLRB, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert
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Obama NLRB Actions “Unconstitutional”

On January 5, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

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. (more…)

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, NLRB, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert
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National Right to Work Attorneys Prepare Challenges to NLRB Appointments

On January 5, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

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.

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Posted in: Big Labor Payback, Economics, Government Grants to Unions, NLRB, NRTWLDF, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert
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Destroying the Constitution for Big Labor

On January 5, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

AFL-CIO Boss Richard Trumka could not be happier at President Obama’s “recess” appointment of three big labor lackeys to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  The problem is that the Senate was never in recess.  The appointments raise grave constitutional concerns for the nation.  For the union bosses, nothing, including the Constitution, should stand in the way of their ability to extract due’s money from worker’s checkbooks.

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Posted in: AFL-CIO, Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, Government Grants to Unions, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert, U.S. Congress
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Obama Reelection Gambit; Ignores Constitution & Gives Big Labor the NLRB

On January 5, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Typically before a reelection, Presidents try to avoid creating constitutional battles. Not President Obama, he bypassed the Senate and appointed three NLRB board members.  Effectively, Obama handed the NLRB over to Big Labor Bosses, his biggest political spenders and political ground force, or “his army” as Teamster Boss Hoffa describes it. Election 2012 has already become ugly.

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? (more…)

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, NLRB, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert
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NLRB Held Boeing Hostage

On December 13, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

The Boston Herald takes the NLRB to task for forcing Boeing to “pay ransom” to Big Labor unions in order to get its complaint against the company dropped:

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.

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Posted in: Big Labor Payback, Boeing, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, NLRB, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert
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