Rouge NRLB Blocking Probe

On October 20, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) accused the National Labor Relations Board of being a “rogue agency” in a letter to its general counsel Monday. The chairman claimed the NLRB knowingly withheld damaging documents relating to his committee’s probe of the agency’s controversial Boeing complaint, the Investors Business Daily Reports:

Issa was referring to a cache of emails obtained earlier this month by the watchdog group Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act.

He expressed anger that the emails were not turned over to his committee first and said the messages demonstrated the agency’s lack of impartiality. He further alleged that some of them contradicted claims NLRB staffers made as part of his committee’s probe.

NLRB spokeswoman Nancy Cleland said the agency had not withheld the emails. She said that the committee’s requests and the FOIA requests that produced the emails were handled separately by different people and that caused confusion.

“Because the documents were being produced on separate tracks, the Committee had not yet received some materials at the time they were provided to Judicial Watch. It is the Agency’s intent to provide those materials as part of its next, and fourth, delivery of documents later this week,” Cleland said in a statement to IBD, adding that in the future the committee requests will be given priority over FOIA requests.

The 505 pages of emails do not contain especially startling revelations. For the most part, the NLRB staffers appear to be very circumspect in their messages to each other. There are several redacted sections, most citing FOIA exceptions for privacy and attorney work product.

Nevertheless in several cases NLRB staffers do offer some personal commentary on the Boeing case and the effect is not unlike listening in at the watercooler. Those messages show the staff to be enthused at the prospect of bringing the aerospace giant to heel and disdainful of their critics on the case.

At the time of the Boeing case, its chairwoman was Wilma Liebman, a former Teamsters lawyer. Obama had also appointed former Service Employees International Union lawyer Craig Becker to the five-member board. Only one board member was a Republican.“The unprecedented NLRB decision to attack Boeing seemed abusive on its face and cried out for further investigation. And we suspected it was done at the behest of union interests and not the public interest. The pro-union email traffic we uncovered confirm this,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, in an email to IBD.

NLRB attorney, John Mantz, forwarded Willen a link to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. The GOP governor was criticizing Obama and his “union-beholden appointees at the National Labor Relations Board” for launching “a direct assault on the 22 right-to-work states across America.”“Deb, have you seen this?” Mantz wrote. Willen didn’t apparently respond, but did forward the link to another attorney, Jayme Sophir, who gave a one-word response: “Ugh.” (more…)

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, Boeing, Court Cases, Economic Development in RTW States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Government Grants to Unions, NLRB, Obama Administration, Right to Work, Right To Work States, South Carolina, State Right To Work, Washington
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Good News-Bad News

On August 26, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

Kentucky is losing jobs to Right to Work neighbor Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Virginia and Florida, among others, says state Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green.  Wilson is fighting a principled battle to level the playing field for workers in Kentucky — a state that has been under the grip of big labor forced unionism since 1935.

In the article noting the benefits the state would receive from becoming Right to Work, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the US Senate Minority Leader agrees that lack of a Right to Work law is hurting economic growth in his state. That’s the good news.

The bad news, however, is that  McConnell then displays his lack of knowledge of federal labor law and how union officials got the power to force workers to pay union dues and fees as a condition of employment in the first place.  The Republican leader in the Senate indicates his opposition to a National Right to Work law.

What Senator McConnell must not know is that the National Right to Work law S. B. 504 is not a new law at all!  The bill, if passed, would not add a single word to federal law.  The bill, (link here), would simply repeal sections of federal labor law that allow union officials to have workers fired from their jobs if they don’t pay dues.

That’s ALL.  In fact, if Senator McConnell would spend the time to research it, he would find that there is no law on the books in his home state of Kentucky that forces workers in the private sector to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.  That privilege is bestowed on union officials from the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is leading the fight for workers nationwide by submitting legislation to protect workers from coast to coast.  It’s time for Sen. McConnell and other hold-outs to join DeMint’s efforts.

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Posted in: Kentucky, National Right to Work Act, Right to Work, Right To Work States
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DeMint continues sounding alarm about NLRB’s attempted Boeing Coup d’état

On June 13, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint takes on the NLRB again his Human Events column:

Like so many federal programs, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has expanded its mission far beyond its original purpose in order to wage ideological battles on the taxpayers’ dime.

The NLRB was never meant to micromanage where companies can locate or how many products they can manufacture, as the NLRB under the Obama administration is currently seeking to do. To stop it, Congress should exercise its power of the purse to return the board to its original mission.

The NLRB was originally established to oversee union elections and investigate violations of federal labor laws. These days it’s doing less of that than ever. In 1980, the NLRB conducted 8,531 union elections around the country, with a budget of $108 million. In 2009, it oversaw only 1,704 union elections, with a budget of $261 million.

Union membership has plummeted by more than 40% since the 1980s. The rapid collapse of organized labor in America’s private sector has reduced the need for union elections—and thus, the NLRB itself—by 80% over the last three decades. Yet its budget—adjusted for inflation—remains essentially unchanged.

Hence the board’s recent drift into freelance assaults on economic freedom: While 20% of its budget may be needed to perform its real job, the board seems to be misusing the other 80% for ideological mischief.

The current NLRB is expanding its mission far beyond the original intent. Consider what Craig Becker, an NLRB appointee who was rejected by the Senate and then recess-appointed by President Obama, has said. “Just as U.S. citizens cannot opt against having a congressman, workers should not be able to choose against having a union as theirmonopoly-bargaining agent.”

Not only has the NLRB launched an unprecedented attack on right-to-work states and job creators, it is now actively silencing nonunion workers in order to give unions a leg up in its legal case against The Boeing Company. This branch of the federal government, charged with protecting workers’ rights, is suing a company on behalf of workers who are not in danger of losing their jobs, while refusing to listen to the concerns of three workers whose jobs actually are threatened by the NLRB’s own actions.

And the NLRB is now suing two states, Arizona and South Dakota, in an effort to overturn democratically passed laws that protect a worker’s right to a secret ballot in those states. The NLRB is actually taking the stance that union bosses should be able to force workers to sign cards in public to join a union, a practice known as “card check,” instead of making the decision in private without fear of intimidation.

This is not enforcement—this is extremism. (more…)

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Posted in: Arizona, Big Labor Payback, Elections, Exclusive Representation, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, Obama Administration, Right to Work, Right To Work States, South Carolina, South Dakota, State Right To Work
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Right To Work = Jobs

On May 20, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

BMW plans to expand in Right To Work state of South Carolina

As politicians are seeking jobs through stimulus programs, spending sprees, welfare, food stamp programs and bureaucratic mandates, many ignore the upshot enactment of a Right to Work law can have on job creation for fear of angering their big labor benefactors. But the evidence continues to compound that giving workers a choice in joining a union is not only a civil rights issue but an economic growth issue. The Washington Examiner gets it:

“Danaher’s closing,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., lamenting the loss of a plant that had employed 330 people in his state. “Now those jobs are going to Arkansas and to Texas.”

It was April 2005. Neal was taking the opportunity during a House committee hearing on competition with China to complain instead about how Massachusetts was losing jobs to states with less-hostile business climates.

The Ways and Means Committee chairman in 2005, California Republican Bill Thomas, mildly rebuked Neal’s deviation from the topic, saying Massachusetts had shot itself in the foot with high taxes and compulsory union membership.

“At some point perhaps the good citizens of Massachusetts will pick up the drift,” Thomas said. (more…)

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, Economic Development in RTW States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation, Massachusetts, NLRB, Obama Administration, Political Activity, Right to Work, Right To Work States, South Carolina
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Former Clinton NLRB Member “Mystified” by NLRB Actions in South Carolina

On May 18, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

The NLRB’s action against South Carolina Boeing employees is mystifying even to a former NLRB Board member appointed by pro-Big Labor President Bill Clinton.

Bill Gould, a Clinton Administration Board member is “mystified” by the NLRB’s actions. “The Boeing case is unprecedented,” he says. “I agree with much of what this board has done and is likely to do, but I don’t agree with what the general counsel has done in the Boeing case. The general counsel is trying to equate an employer’s concern with strikes that disrupt production and make it difficult to make deadlines—he’s trying to equate that with hostility toward trade unionism. I don’t think that makes sense.”

From the Slate post, Air Rage by David Weigel:

Bill Gould has some advice for the labor movement: Turn back. Turn back before it’s too late.

“The administration is acting like a bunch of thugs,” said Sen. Jim DeMint. “If this is checks and balances, God help our country,” said Gov. Nikki Haley. “This is nothing more than bullying by the labor unions. This is President Obama and Harry Reid carrying their water.”

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, Economic Development in RTW States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Forced-Unionism Abuses Exposed, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, NLRB, Obama Administration, Oregon, Political Activity, Right to Work, Right To Work States, Washington
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