NLRB: Law Breakers?

On December 10, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

Conn Carroll of the Washington Examiner raises an interesting question:  Did the National Labor Relations Board violate federal law?

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. (more…)

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Posted in: Big Labor Payback, Boeing, NLRB, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert, Right to Work, Right To Work States
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Daniels eyes ‘right to work’ in final session

On November 13, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

Indiana Right To Work continues to move closer to reality.  From the Washington Examiner:

Gov. Mitch Daniels has long flirted with “right to work,” but it seems he can’t decide whether to take it to the big dance —  when it comes to blocking private sector unions and businesses from mandating union membership or dues, via “right-to-work” legislation next year, he’s not ready to take the lead.

“I think it’s highly likely from talking to legislators it will be in front of this next General Assembly and it has, as I thought it should, been researched, debated and vetted for a year. And I think they believe it’s appropriate now to bring it forward,” Daniels said.

But with Daniels off the list of presidential contenders, the state’s biennial budget approved and no marquee issues arising just yet, “right to work” could be poised to dominate the short 2012 session.

“It is clear to us that the votes are there to pass it. We would like to see it happen in 2012,” said Greg Mourad, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee. Mourad and other “right to work” advocates have taken to calling Daniels their “silent supporter” — he’s a big fan, but he’s not ready to declare his love in public just yet.

Rep. Jerry Torr, R-Carmel, said he’s ready to carry the issue in the House, just as he has for the last eight years. The question remains whether leadership will push it through.

Mitch Roob, then Daniels’ economic development chief, told the study committee that “right to work” was needed to bring jobs to the state. Supporters like Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, see that as a signal Daniels is on board with them.

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Posted in: Right to Work
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Is the SEIU Above the Law?

On July 25, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

The discovery of an SEIU intimidation guidebook has led the Washington Examiner to make the compelling case that the SEIU should not be above the law:

Imagine the outcry if managers of a company trying to fight off a union seeking to organize its employees used the following tactics:

  • Stage regular mass visits or sit-ins using paid protesters at the union’s headquarters to prevent its officials from doing their work.
  • Organize constant telephone calls to targeted union officials to harass them into backing off their campaign.
  • Plant negative stories about the union to jeopardize its relationships with managers and owners of community institutions the union must depend on to maintain daily operations, including banks or credit unions, office suppliers, caterers, utilities, and landlords.
  • Use friends and allies in government to generate costly legal and regulatory pressure on the union.
  • Plant negative stories about the union and its officials with local media.
  • Encourage employees who support management to use civil disobedience tactics to disrupt all attempts by the union to meet with or otherwise communicate with other employees in the workplace or elsewhere.
  • Promise informants protection from retaliation for providing “dirt” that can be used to compromise union leaders during negotiations, or embarrass them in public with their friends and families.

Any company engaging in these sorts of tactics would be quickly forced to explain itself before the National Labor Relations Board, which would almost certainly impose a costly sanction after finding the firm guilty of unfair labor practices. As it happens, all of these tactics, and many more as bad or worse, are described by and endorsed in a training manual used by officials of the Service Employees International Union in preparing members for campaigns against targeted companies.

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Posted in: Intimidation Tactics, Right to Work
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Obama’s Secretary of Labor sued for aiding union bosses concealment of personal benefits

On July 19, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

With the help of National Right To Work Legal Defense Attorney Bill Messenger, UFCW former union steward Chris Mosquera seeks to force U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to reverse her regulations that rescinded disclosure of union boss benefits, insider deals, and sources of receipts.  Forced-dues fill Big Labor treasuries with cash that all-too-often union bosses turn into private slush funds awarding themselves handsome benefits.

From the Mosquera’s Op-Ed in the Washington Examiner: 

Without stringent disclosure requirements, union members and nonmembers alike are left at the mercy of union officials who have the power to collect dues without being held accountable for how that money is spent.

The public reporting guidelines Solis jettisoned included several common-sense additions to the Labor Management Relations Disclosure Act of 1959.

Under the proposed guidelines, union officials would have to disclose how much individual compensation they receive in the form of benefits, account for any travel and entertainment expenses, and identify union income streams.

The fact is most workers want more information about how their money is being spent by union officials. Last year, a poll revealed that nearly 90 percent of union members support strong union transparency requirements.

Disclosure is a simple but effective tool for fighting corruption and encouraging accountability. If union officials know their spending habits are part of the public record, they’ll be less interested in expensive getaways and more interested in effectively managing their members’ hard-earned dues. (more…)

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Ethics, Big Labor Payback, DOL, Labor Organizations, Obama Administration, Right to Work
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Taxpayer Funded Big Labor Cash Cow Hit by WI Reform

On July 12, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

What Reform Was About

Wisconsin Republicans put their careers on the line to reform the state’s collective bargaining process for government unions — standing up to entrenched special interests and back room deals that have dominated the political landscape for decades. Byron York of the Washington Examiner takes a look at one of the corrupt bargains that seems to be coming to an end thanks to their efforts. It appears the union bosses were padding their bottom line by forcing school districts to buy health insurance through a company they owned — all at inflated costs. Now free of those constraints, schools are saving money on wasteful contracts helping teachers and students in the process. Other states should take note.

The Hartland-Lakeside School District, about 30 miles west of Milwaukee in tiny Hartland, Wis., had a problem in its collective bargaining contract with the local teachers union.

The contract required the school district to purchase health insurance from a company called WEA Trust. The creation of Wisconsin’s largest teachers union — “WEA” stands for Wisconsin Education Association — WEA Trust made money when union officials used collective bargaining agreements to steer profitable business its way.

The problem for Hartland-Lakeside was that WEA Trust was charging significantly higher rates than the school district could find on the open market. School officials knew that because they got a better deal from United HealthCare for coverage of nonunion employees. On more than one occasion, Superintendent Glenn Schilling asked WEA Trust why the rates were so high. “I could never get a definitive answer on that,” says Schilling.

Changing to a different insurance company would save Hartland-Lakeside hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be spent on key educational priorities — especially important since the cash-strapped state government was cutting back on education funding. But teachers union officials wouldn’t allow it; the WEA Trust requirement was in the contract, and union leaders refused to let Hartland-Lakeside off the hook.

“It’s going to save us about $690,000 in 2011-2012,” says Schilling. Insurance costs that had been about $2.5 million a year will now be around $1.8 million. What union leaders said would be a catastrophe will in fact be a boon to teachers and students. (more…)

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Posted in: Economic Impact of Unionization, Elections, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, Teacher Unions
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Latest NLRB Big Labor Handout – Ambush “Elections”

On June 21, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

If punishing employees in Right to Work states isn’t enough to please the union bosses, then the NLRB continues to try. Their latest giveaway is an effort to impose “quickie elections” — a blatant effort to ensure that workers do not get both sides of the unionization issue.

The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein looks at the latest union bailout:

With union membership precipitously declining (it was less than 7 percent in the private sector last year), big labor has been desperate to expand its ranks by any means necessary.

As Peter Schaumber, former NLRB chairman, warned last week, “Imagine a political election in which only one party were given the opportunity to tell voters its side of the story, and could set an election date only days away, all without prior notice to the other side.” (more…)

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Posted in: Big Labor Payback, Economics, Elections, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, NLRB, Obama Administration, Right to Work
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Tables Turned on UNITE-HERE Bosses

On April 7, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

The Hyatt Corporation has called for a secret ballot election on whether to unionize. That’s right, a major corporation has called for a unionization vote. Tom Mooney at the Washington Examiner has the story of how the company sought to give their workers a voice and a choice only to be rebuffed by the union and the National Labor Relations Board.

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Posted in: Card Check, Card Check, Elections, Government Grants to Unions, NLRB
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Fiscal worries, union power-grabs spark new Right-to-Work campaigns

On March 7, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

From the Washington Examiner:

In 1997, legendary journalist Robert Novak summed up renewed interest in the Right-to-Work issue thusly: “It’s so old-fashioned it’s a brand new idea.”

Over a decade later, that observation still rings true. Faced with intractable budget crises and Big Labor power grabs, states are increasingly turning to an old solution — Right-to-Work laws — to protect worker freedom and jump-start their troubled economies.

Thirteen states recently introduced Right-to-Work legislation to ensure no worker can be forced to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment, and a number of others may soon join them.

In New Hampshire, a Right-to-Work bill has already sailed through the lower chamber. In Indiana, another Right-to-Work bill was in the offing until Gov. Mitch Daniels abruptly decided he had “other priorities.” Apparently, freedom of association didn’t merit inclusion in Daniels’ supposedly “bold” governing agenda.

Meanwhile, several Michigan lawmakers are considering special “Right-to-Work zones” in a state long considered a bastion of forced unionism. While hardly adequate to fully protect employee choice, these embryonic reform proposals point to a significant shift in state labor politics.

The impetus behind this wave of Right-to-Work legislation isn’t a mystery: Big budget deficits, declining revenues and slumping economic growth have forced many states to reconsider their fiscal priorities, while a prolonged recession has legislators scrambling for policies with a proven record of job creation.

Fortunately, renewed interest in Right-to-Work happens to coincide with a historic opportunity. In November, voters across the country kicked many of Big Labor’s loudest forced-unionism apologists out of statehouses, where they once wielded tremendous power to obstruct or block Right-to-Work legislation.

The logic of state Right-to-Work laws is ironclad: Not only is safeguarding worker freedom the right thing to do, it also yields tremendous economic benefits. Recent studies from the Cato Institute and the National Institute for Labor Relations Research suggest that Right-to-Work states enjoy higher job growth and more cost-of-living-adjusted disposable income for workers than their forced-unionism counterparts.

They also seem to be weathering the recession better than old Midwestern industrial bastions like Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, states that lack protections for individual workers’ rights. (Click to read full article)

Op-Ed by Mark Mix is president of the National Right-to-Work Committee.

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Posted in: Elections, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Legislation, Political Activity, State RTW
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