Still Not Getting It in the White House

On December 14 President Obama announced two intended nominations to the National Labor Relations Board. They are Sharon Block, who currently serves as deputy assistant secretary for congressional affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor; and Richard Griffin, general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers, to fill two seats at the NLRB.

Block worked from 2006 to 2009 as senior counsel for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Griffin has served on the board of directors for the Lawyers Coordinating Committee at the AFL-CIO since 1994.

Obama needs to make these nominations because the term of the recess-appointed commissioner Craig Becker is up at the end of this year, which means that the board will not be able to make further decisions in the absence of a quorum. Becker, if you recall, received his recess appointment because there was no way the Senate would approve the nomination of so rankly partisan a figure as the lawyer of the Service Employees International Union who had publicly argued that employers should be stripped of their rights.

These new nominations have reinforced the impression formed by leaks and public statements from Democrat campaign strategists, as well as the President’s recent speeches, that his 2012 re-election campaign will attempt to rally the party’s base by deploying class resentment and offering a steady diet of red meat to his core constituents.

A major component of this strategy has been to go overboard in giving organized labor everything they want administratively through the NLRB and the Labor Department following the defeat of union-backed card check legislation. That failure especially angered union leaders because they had plowed tens of millions into the campaign chests of President Obama and the Democratic Party, only to see card check legislation fail with a Democrat in the White House and Democrats controlling both houses of Congress.

The problem with his strategy is that it is more serious than a just campaign tactic. The essential quality of this strategy is the pre-supposition that employers and the workforce are in daily competition to divide up companies’ revenues, and that employers daily seek to reduce the pay of employees and increase their workload. And, it is this point I want to hammer home: Unions feast off of an “us-versus-them” mentality, and today’s business model is just an “us” attitude attempting to create teamwork and a collaborative environment. When you have an NLRB that promotes an “us-versus-them” mentality in the workforce, its actions damage America’s output and innovation.

The offenses are many, including the attempt (recently dropped) to charge Boeing with breaking the law for attempting to open a new plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state. Recently the board approved quickie ambush organizing elections designed to make it nearly impossible for employers to counter union propaganda. The NLRB also has worked with organized labor to file unfair practice charges against employers targeted by unions. It also has made clear through its actions that its goal is to resurrect card check via rulemaking actions.

If the administration was serious about wanting to encourage employers to invest more in employment, the logical response would be to listen to the outcry of the private sector and demonstrate awareness through appointments that do not come from organized labor.

And if the administration really wanted employers to hire new workers and give consumers more purchasing power, the logical response would be to put on hold all new NLRB regulations until there was a meeting of the minds on private sector job creation.  Instead the NLRB moved to empower its General Counsel to act as the full board in carrying out regulations proposed by the rump majority when a quorum cannot be achieved.

IWLA has two new responses on this new development to help educate our members about what is happening, what they can do and how they can protect themselves.

Our Washington representative Pat O’Connor will be the featured speaker on IWLA’s first webinar in 2012, on January 26. Pat will discuss the Congress and the NLRB; the response of the Senate and House to these appointments; and the employer strategy moving forward, working through the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other employer groups that IWLA supports.

At the 2012 IWLA Annual Convention March 18-20 in San Francisco labor law experts Kerryann Haase and Brian Paul will condense their four-hour NLRB workshop into a two-hour session they will present. This convention session is a must-attend event to protect your company.

To learn more, visit www.iwla.com