WASHINGTON – The chairman of the National Labor Relations Board hopes to have another round of regulations in place by the end of the year that would make it easier for unions to establish and win representation elections in workplaces.
Undeterred by Republican protests, Mark Pearce said he will urge the board to approve the new rules now that it has a full component of five members after President Barack Obama bypassed the Senate to fill three vacancies.
"We keep our eye on the prize," Pearce said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Our goal is to create a set of rules that eliminate a lot of waste of time, energy and money for the taxpayers."
One change Pearce wants is requiring businesses to hand over lists of employee phone numbers and emails to union leaders before an election. He also wants the board to consider other rule changes it didn't have time to approve before it lost a quorum last year. They include the use of electronic filings and quicker timetables for certain procedures.
"My personal hope is that we take on all of these things and consider each one of these rules," Pearce said. "We presume the constitutionality of the president's appointments and we go forward based on that understanding."
GOP leaders have challenged the recess appointments as unconstitutional, saying the Senate was not technically in recess when Obama acted. Republicans had threatened to block confirmation votes on any nominees to fill the three NLRB vacancies, saying the board was making too many union-friendly decisions.
If the board decides to propose the new rules, they would expand on sweeping regulations approved in December that speed up the process for holding union elections at work sites after unions collect enough signatures from employees. Those rules are slated to take effect on April 30.
While the first round of rules won praise from union leaders, business groups claim they allow "ambush elections" that won't give employers enough time to talk to employees about whether to choose a union.
Business groups and their Republican allies say the latest push confirms their fears that the new board — now led by three Democrats and two Republicans — will approve even more rules that make it easier for unions to organize new members.
"I knew this was going to happen," said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. "The NLRB has lost all pretense of objectivity in my judgment."
White House officials say Obama was justified in going around the Senate since some Republicans had vowed to block any nominations in order to paralyze the NLRB. The five-member board is not allowed to consider cases or rules unless it has a quorum of at least three members.
Randel Johnson, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's vice president on labor issues, said he is surprised the board would try to adopt even more new rules that businesses fiercely oppose.
"If they're going to go forward on that basis, I think that removes any pretense at all that they are not in the back pocket of the union movement," Johnson said.
AFL-CIO spokeswoman Alison Omens called Pearce's comments "a reasonable, balanced approach to ensure that every person has a voice on the job."
"The board is obviously taking modest steps to create a level playing field and bring stability to a process that's been outdated," Omens said.
Republicans in Congress are vowing to put more pressure on the agency, with at least two hearings on the NLRB recess appointments planned next month before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the House Judiciary Committee.
"If the board is determined to continue advancing it's pro-union agenda, House Republicans will continue to maintain aggressive oversight," said Brian Newell, spokesman for education committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn.
Pearce said he wants the NLRB to become "a household word" for all workers, not just those affiliated with organized labor.
"We want the agency to be known as the resource for people with workplace concerns that may have nothing to do with union activities," he said.
He said many workers don't understand that they can seek recourse with the NLRB to protect rights that exist outside of union protections.
The NLRB held a “meet and greet” on Jan. 12 between lawmakers and the three newly sworn in Board members at the center of the latest NLRB firestorm. Members of Congress were denied the chance to question or even scan the resumes of Richard Griffin and Sharon Block as the two Democrats’ names were only first sent to Congress on December 15, the day before the start of the Senate’s pro forma holiday session. (Republican Terence Flynn was nominated last January.)
Less than three weeks after nominating Griffin and Block, on Jan. 3, President Obama lost patience with the process, returning from holiday to invoke his new “We Can’t Wait” doctrine, and seat all three nominees in what just might be his most bald-faced appeasement (to date) of Big Labor.
The paperwork filed on the 15th normally triggers a nomination process that includes first a full background check looking for improprieties and all potential conflicts of interest. In fact the rules of the Senate’s HELP Committee demand a five-day waiting period to examine a candidate’s background before any action can be taken on a nomination. (It’s difficult to imagine a more conflicted nominee than Richard Griffin who has served for 17 years on the board of directors for the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee.) This is the biggest difference between a traditional recess appointment, where a fully vetted candidate languishes for months in partisan limbo, and a special emergency “We Can’t Wait” (or what we call a “recess without a recess” appointment), where candidates are sworn into office before a second branch of government can even check their credit report.
On January 6 the National Right to Work Foundation filed the first of what will likely be many legal challenges to the appointments, in a joint action with the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace and the National Federation of Independent Business. (The Foundation has consolidated its legal challenge of the appointments with its ongoing challenge of the new workplace posting rules.)
“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.”
These initial challenges have a bit of a legal hill to climb on the issue of standing (since the posting requirement was adopted by a valid quorum of the Board). But that legal hurdle won’t be around for long. As soon as the new Board issues decisions – or regulations – they’ll create a ready supply of new plaintiffs with certain standing.
The Wall Street Journal calls the recess appointments a “reckless ploy” and accuses the President of ultimately undermining the Board’s authority with the questionable legality of his actions. Every decision of the new Board will be challenged and potentially all could be overturned en masse if the appointments are found to be unconstitutional. Looking back a year from now, it’s most likely the new Board will have only accomplished one thing with its new dubious “We Can’t Wait” quorum – the injection of even more uncertainty into the country’s business climate when we all can least afford it.
As Melanie Trottman of the Journal wrote: “Mr. Obama is claiming an open-ended authority to determine that the Senate is in recess, despite that body’s own judgment and the factual realities. That is an astonishing and, so far as we can tell, unprecedented power grab…It is not up to the president to decide whether the Senate is organized properly or working hard enough.”
ROMNEY WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE SELF-DEPORTATION......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
NLRB Moves to Humiliate Employers, Give Unions Access to Employees and Property by LaborUnionReport
Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.
Ayn Rand, Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal.
_________________
Here’s the scene:
Imagine yourself a small business owner with 50 employees or so. You’ve just spent the last two years of the Great Recession barely keeping your head above water, taking on some debt to keep your business viable. You’ve made a promise to yourself not to lay any of your employees off, but you also haven’t been able to give any raises, you’ve had to take away dental benefits, and everyone’s health care costs are going up this year because of ObamaCare.
At last, though, things are starting to look up a little and you finally have enough business to hire a couple of new employees. After a fairly extensive search, you find a couple of candidates who seem like good fits. They’ve been unemployed for a while and seem really grateful that you’ve given them a job. It turns out, they’re pretty knowledgeable on running equipment and seem to get along really well with your other employees.
Well, a few months go by and one Friday afternoon, just before you’re to head home for the weekend, you get a fax from the National Labor Relations Board. The fax states that “unfair labor practice” charges have been filed against you and your company. Among other charges are those alleging that you fired a pro-union employee, interrogated employees, solicited grievances, made promises of benefits, and threatened to close…all illegal acts.
You contact your attorney and, through an inquiry to the NRLB, he finds out the basis of the charges, you learn that a union has targeted your company. Your attorney then advises you that you should probably settle the charges because they are pretty damning. How so? you ask.
Well, he tells you, it seems that, during your employee meeting a few weeks ago when you had promised that you were restoring the company’s dental plan later in the year, one of the new guys had asked you how you feel about a union, you said jokingly and off the cuff, “I’ll close my doors before I ever go union.” That was bad enough, your lawyer tells you, but then you allegedly asked the question, “Why? Do you want a union?” On top of that, he tells you, you fired a pro-union employee (never mind that you didn’t know that the guy was pro-union).
While you don’t remember all of the details of that meeting, the lawyer’s account (which he got from the NLRB) sounds pretty accurate. Now, your lawyer tells you, you can fight the charges which may cost you $50,000 to $100,000 and you’ll still probably lose, or you can settle the charges.
Here’s what the NLRB wants: •You must give the union a list of all of your employees’ names and addresses so the union can contact them at home •You must let the union post information on your bulletin boards •You must allow the union to come into your company and meet with your employees •You must offer full reinstatement to the pro-union employee, with backpay (even though he was fired for damaging a customer’s order—purposefully you suspect) •Lastly, you must stand in front of your employees and read out loud the posting of the settlement with the NLRB
If you don’t settle the charges, your lawyer tells you, the NLRB is prepared to go to federal court to get an injunction ordering you to comply.
Oh, and by the way, your attorney tells you, that pro-union employee (one of the new hires you had hired a few months back) appears to be a union salt—whose sole purpose was to get hired in order to unionize your company.
If this sounds implausible, it shouldn’t. It is precisely the machinery that the union-controlled National Labor Relations Board set into place…last month.
The Politics of Posters
Last month, three days before Christmas, the union-controlled National Labor Relations Board issued a controversial proposal to require all private-sector employers to post notices in the workplace advising employees about their rights to unionize. While the proposed rule would not take effect until after the 60-day public comment period closes on February 22nd, it has garnered much-earned ire and commentary throughout the employer community. However, while there has been much attention on the bright and shiny NLRB poster proposal, the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel, Lafe Solomon has been quietly slipping a garotte around the necks of the nation’s employers.
The NLRB’s Sleight of Hand
On December 20th, two days before the NLRB issued its poster proposal, Acting General Counsel* Solomon issued a Memorandum to all NLRB regional offices entitled Effective Remedies in Organizing Campaigns. As an instructional memorandum to the NLRB regions on the handling of certain types of cases, there is no need for public comment, hearings or the like. It has already taken effect.
Ostensibly, Solomon’s memo is to provide guidance to the NLRB regional offices when dealing with employer misconduct during unionization campaigns. Solomon’s memo details different levels of employer misconduct during union campaigns, from asking questions (interrogation) and making changes to working conditions, to firing pro-union workers, then gives several types of “remedies” for the regional offices of the NLRB to pursue.
This is not to excuse true employer misconduct in the four percent of cases where it actually occurs. However, knowing that it costs a union nothing to file unfair labor practice (ULP) charges and, as it happens routinely today, given the current bias of the NLRB, businesses should expect a sharp up-tick in the filing of ULP charges (whether frivolous or not).
It should also be noted that the National Labor Relations Board does not use the same standards that courts use when deciding guilt or innocence. In fact, it’s been said that the NLRB process is often a ‘trial by ambush’ and ‘guilty until proven innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt’ is the standard for employers at the NLRB. In addition, given that unions often deploy deceptive tactics (including paid and unpaid union “salts” to unionize companies from within), combined with the current NLRB being under the control of union bosses, it is easy to predict that employers will found be guilty of unfair labor practices when, in fact, they may be entirely innocent. This make Lafe Solomon’s so-called “remedies” all the more troublesome.
The Public Flogging Remedy
On page 6 of his remedies, Lafe Solomon calls for employers that have been found guilty by the NLRB to publicly read NLRB notices to assembled groups of employees:
Notice-reading remedies generally require that a responsible management official read the notice to assembled employees or, at the respondent’s option, have a Board Agent read the notice in the presence of a responsible management official.
[snip]
Furthermore, where a high ranking manager personally committed some of the violations, hearing that manager read the notice, or seeing him present while it is read, will “dispel the atmosphere of intimidation he created” and best assure employees that their rights will be respected.
On page 8, Solomon instructs the NLRB regions to order employers to give unions access to their bulletin boards, as well as to turn over names and addresses of employees to the union.
Where an employer unlawfully interferes with communications between employees, or between employees and a union, the impact of that interference requires a remedy that will ensure free and open communication. Allowing union access to the employer’s bulletin boards and providing the union with the names and addresses of employees will restore employee/union communication and assist the employees in hearing the union’s message without fear of retaliation. These access remedies assure the employees that they can learn about unionization and can contact union representatives in an atmosphere free of the restraint or coercion generated by an employer’s violations.
[snip]
An order requiring an employer to permit access to its bulletin boards will broaden the opportunity for employee/union communication. Union access to bulletin boards permits employees to see, at the workplace, that open displays of union information are acceptable, and will better thaw the chilling impact of the violations than the bare recitation of rights in a standard notice posting.
Giving the Unions Employees’ Names & Addresses
On page 9 of Solomon’s instructions, the NLRB regions are instructed to require that employers turn over the names and addresses of employees.
“To neutralize the effect of the Respondent’s face-to-face restraint and coercion, it is necessary that the employees have ready access to union organizers and other officials who can explain to them the Union’s point of view with respect to organizational activities.” The names-and-addresses remedy “attempts to level a playing field that has been tilted against the employees’ organizational rights” by the employer’s unfair labor practices and enables the union to contact all the employees outside the work environment free from management’s watchful eye.
Open the Doors, Let the Organizers Come In
On page 10, Solomon goes for the jugular, instructing regions when it is appropriate to order an employer to allow union organizers on to company property to address employees.
If a Region determines that an employer’s unfair labor practices have had such a severe impact on employee/union communication that bulletin board access and names and addresses are insufficient to permit a fair election, it should submit the case to the Division of Advice with a recommendation as to why additional remedies are warranted, including: granting a union access to nonwork areas during employees’ nonwork time; giving a union notice of, and equal time and facilities for the union to respond to, any address made by the company regarding the issue of representation; and affording the union the right to deliver a speech to employees at an appropriate time prior to any Board election.
You can read Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon’s entire Memorandum here.
Now, if the above weren’t bad enough, Lafe Solomon issued another memorandum on January 12th calling for the use of “Default Language” in the settlement of ULP cases.
The “Default Language,” which the NLRB is now, according to Atlanta-based labor attorney Mark Keenan, utiliizing in NLRB settlements nationwide is as follows:
The Charged Party/Respondent agrees that in case of non-compliance with any of the terms of this Settlement Agreement by the Charged Party/Respondent, and after 14 days notice from the Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board of such non-compliance without remedy by the Charged Party/Respondent, the Regional Director will [issue/reissue] the [complaint/ compliance specification] previously issued on [date] in the instant case(s). Thereafter, the General Counsel may file a motion for summary judgment with the Board on the allegations of the [complaint/compliance specification]. The Charged Party/Respondent understands and agrees that the allegations of the aforementioned [complaint/compliance specification] will be deemed admitted and its Answer to such [complaint/compliance specification] will be considered withdrawn. The only issue that may be raised before the Board is whether the Charged Party/Respondent defaulted on the terms of this Settlement Agreement. The Board may then, without necessity of trial or any other proceeding, find all allegations of the [complaint/ compliance specification] to be true and make findings of fact and conclusions of law consistent with those allegations adverse to the Charged Party/Respondent, on all issues raised by the pleadings. The Board may then issue an order providing a full remedy for the violations found as is customary to remedy such violations. The parties further agree that the U.S. Court of Appeals Judgment may be entered enforcing the Board order ex parte.
Last week, President Obama issued an Executive Order to review regulations that could be hampering job growth. Unfortunately, the union-controlled National Labor Relations Board is likely to escape such review. As a result, it is only a matter of time before employers begin to realize that the President’s pro-business rhetoric doesn’t match the job-killing, anti-business deeds being committed by his pro-union National Labor Relations Board.
_________________
* The General Counsel, appointed by the President to a 4-year term with Senate consent, is independent from the Board and is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of unfair labor practice cases and for the general supervision of the NLRB field offices in the processing of cases. On January 5th, President Obama nominated Acting General Counsel Solomon to the position of General Counsel for a full, four-year term. His nomination awaits Senate confirmation.
_________________
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
I believe this is an infringement on MY RIGHTS as an employee.....why should I have to be BOTHERED by my co-workers and the government rules of something I DIDN'T FU(KING ASK FOR?????
YOU DONT GET MY PHONE NUMBER, on the fly and lie of 'helping me'.....
this is another prong in the fork of
1. HIPPA 2. RealID 3. DNA data base and new to the list 4. Card carrying member for access to food/housing etc
WHERE THE HELL IS BUFFET AND FRIENDS ON THIS....oh...wait,,,,the government removes their balls in this case.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
The National Labor Relations Board is proud of its 75-year history of enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between employers and employees in the private sector. On July 5, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Act into law, stating that the law sought to achieve "common justice and economic advance." Starting in the Great Depression and continuing through World War II and the economic growth and challenges that followed, the NLRB has worked to guarantee the rights of employees to bargain collectively, if they choose to do so.
We share here some of this rich history of both the Board and the Act.
of course folks were 'CRYING' about jobs....IT WAS THE F'EN DEPRESSION.....what's really funny is the lack of folks to just leave the sh!t behind and forage for themselves.....NLRB was created as a 'feelgood' concept....sure fine...but guess what....a contract stifles your ability to make more $$....it's a tool for the tax system and a way to bean count......
think about it....think beyond the 'brotherhood' of unions and the 'feelgood' rhetoric....they take your voice AWAY....no longer is it you and your employer...now you get to have all your co-workers strapped to your leg one on each side... not to mention the loss of grey-matter real estate.....
stupid stupid stupid......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
The National Labor Relations Act extends rights to many private-sector employees, including the right to organize and to bargain collectively with their employer. Employees covered by the Act are protected from certain types of employer and union misconduct and have the right to attempt to form a union where none currently exists.
Examples of Your Rights As An Employee Under the NLRA Are:
Forming, or attempting to form, a union among the employees of your employer.
Joining a union whether the union is recognized by your employer or not.
Assisting a union in organizing your fellow employees.
Engaging in protected concerted activities. Generally, "protected concerted activity" is group activity that seeks to change wages or working conditions.
Refusing to do any or all of these things. However, the union and employer, in a State where such agreements are permitted, may enter into a lawful union-security clause requiring employees to pay union dues and fees. The NLRA forbids employers from interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of rights relating to organizing, forming, joining or assisting a labor organization for collective bargaining purposes, or engaging in protected concerted activities, or refraining from these activities. Similarly, unions may not restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of these rights.
who protects MY RIGHTS????????
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Logged
