Obama NLRB to Ignore Mid-Term Election Results; intends to backdoor ‘Card Check’

(Source: December 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

Independent Workers, Firms Face ‘Card-Check Lite’ Implementation

It’s been more than a century since Mr. Dooley, the immortal comic character created by Chicago-based journalist Finley Peter Dunne, opined that “th’ Supreme Coort follows th’ election returns.”

In the High Court’s consideration of controversial legal cases over the years, it often really has seemed that majorities of unelected justices were reluctant, for good or ill, to ignore recent electoral results.

But Mr. Dooley’s adage doesn’t appear to have made any impression whatsoever on the forced-unionism zealots who now hold all but one of the four occupied seats on the powerful National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB.

(The fifth NLRB seat has been vacant for several months.)

Despite the fact that voters in the November 2 general elections sent a clear message they oppose the imposition of new federal policies to help Organized Labor increase the share of workers who are under union monopoly-bargaining control, the Obama NLRB is signaling that is exactly what it intends to do.

For example, on October 21, when a wide array of polls were already showing that pro-forced unionism politicians would suffer major losses in both chambers of Congress on Election Day, NLRB member Mark Pearce publicly discussed one way the Board may make corralling workers into unions easier in 2011.

Mr. Pearce, until this year a union lawyer in private practice in Buffalo, N.Y., suggested in a speech at a law school in Boston that the NLRB may soon rewrite federal rules for unionization campaigns in order to tilt the playing field even more steeply in union organizers’ favor.

In particular, Mr. Pearce indicated that the NLRB may soon cease allowing an average of 38 days from the time an employer is notified that a union is seeking monopoly-bargaining control over his or her employees to the time the workplace election occurs, and instead allow only 5-10 days.

‘Quick-Snap’ Elections Would Deny Workers A Meaningful Vote

“Effectively, the kind of ‘quick-snap’ elections Mr. Pearce is talking about would deny employees the opportunity to hear both sides of the story before they vote on unionization by denying employers enough time to make their case,” charged Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“The bottom-line impact of this bureaucratic sop to Big Labor would be very similar to the impact of the mandatory ‘card check’ legislation, or S.560 and H.R.1409, that union lobbyists tried unsuccessfully to ram through the 2009-2010 Congress: more union power over workers and more forced dues in union coffers.

“On November 2, 31 U.S. House and Senate incumbents who had voted for the ‘card check’ scheme lost their re-election bids.

“This is about as clear an electoral repudiation as any bill ever gets.

“Unfortunately, the NLRB is ignoring voters’ unmistakable message and appears determined to foist ‘card check lite’ on American workplaces. Only determined congressional action can stop President Obama’s NLRB bureaucrats.”

Committee President Vows To Back Legislation Thwarting ‘Card Check Lite’

“‘Card check lite’ means more monopolistic unionism, and that in turn means fewer jobs and less income growth for private-sector workers,” Mr. Mix continued.

Mark Mix: More monopolistic unionism means fewer jobs and less income growth for private-sector workers.

He vowed that the Committee would work closely with Capitol Hill allies to craft legislation blocking implementation of quick-snap elections and any other variety of “card check lite” by the NLRB.

“Enactment of legislation reining in NLRB abuses will be a tall order in 2011, given Big Labor Sen. Harry Reid’s [D-Nev.] continuing control over Congress’s upper chamber and President Obama’s continued veto power,” acknowledged Mr. Mix.

“But it’s a battle Right to Work supporters can’t afford to pass up. Before we can make things better, we have to stop them from getting even worse.”