WFI - NLRB Continues Big Labor Bailout

Regulatory Agency Pursuing Job-Killing Agenda

Washington, D.C. (March 29, 2011) – The Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) today issued the following statement in response to the most recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) stating third party contractors have a right to access private property to organize workers and distribute materials to the general public:

“The NLRB continues to prove they are nothing more than an advocacy arm of Big Labor and their actions call into question why our tax dollars should be directed toward a regulatory agency committed to job-killing policies.  The board’s finding in New York New York will result in more costs and work disruptions for businesses, which equals less jobs and opportunities,” said Katie Gage, executive director of the Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI).  “Instead of giving labor bosses access to private property to coerce workers and intimidate customers, maybe the NLRB should encourage their friends at Big Labor to step into the 21^st Century and consider other ways of communicating that don’t involve access to property they don’t own.”   

The Workforce Fairness Institute is an organization committed to educating voters, employers, employees and citizens about issues affecting the workplace. To learn more, please visit: http://www.workforcefairness.com.



RS: Tail Wags Dog: Union-Controlled NLRB Throws Union Bosses Another Bone

http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/03/28/tail-wags-dog-union-controlled-nlrb-throws-union-bosses-another-bone/

Tail Wags Dog: Union-Controlled NLRB Throws Union Bosses Another Bone

March 28, 2011

RedState

Given the many of the asinine rulings coming from the union-controlled National Labor Relations Board, it is becoming impossible to be shocked at the kowtowing to union bosses’ these days. Nevertheless, there is a sense of duty to bring you the latest example of the tail wagging the dog.

Here’s the bottom line:

Companies that have third-party contractors can now be found guilty of committing unfair labor practices for not allowing the contractors’ off-duty employees onto company property to handbill their co-workers and the public (which includes the company’s customers) in an effort to unionize the contractor.

Here’s the summary of the case that spans nearly 15 years:

A Las Vegas casino contracted with a non-union, third-party contractor to provide food services to the casino’s guests in three restaurants and a food court. The third-party contractor’s approximately 900 employees were not unionized. However, the culinary union took an interest in these employees and launched a campaign to unionize them.

On three occasions in 1997 and 1998, off-duty employees of the contractor came onto casino property to distribute fliers to their on-duty co-workers, as well as the casino’s customers. On all three occasions, the property owner asked the off-duty employees to leave the property. They refused.

After the Las Vegas police were called and issued the trespassers citations and escorted them off the employer’s property, the union filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB claiming the off-duty contractor’s employees had a right to be on the company’s premises. The Clinton-NLRB agreed.

In both cases, in agreement with the administrative law judges, the Board found that NYNY had violated the Act as alleged.  Relying primarily on Gayfers Department Store and Southern Services the Board found that because the handbillers were employees of a contractor who worked regularly and exclusively on NYNY’s property, they enjoyed the right to distribute literature to NYNY customers in nonwork areas during nonworking time, subject only to NYNY’s need to maintain production and discipline.

The property owner, however, appealed to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which remanded the case back to the NLRB concluding:

…the Board had failed to consider the implications of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Lechmere (reaffirming the holding of Babcock & Wilcox that nonemployee union organizers are entitled to distribute literature on an employer’s private property only when they have no reasonable, nontrespassory means to communicate their message). [Emphasis added.]

Upon remand, as stated in its press release, the NLRB decided against the property owner:

In their decision, Chairman Liebman and Members Becker and Pearce stated, “We strike an accommodation between the contractor employees’ rights under federal labor law and the property owner’s state-law property rights and legitimate managerial interests.”  They concluded that:

“[T]he property owner may lawfully exclude such employees only where the owner is able to demonstrate that their activity significantly interferes with his use of the property or where exclusion is justified by another legitimate business reason, including, but not limited to, the need to maintain production and discipline…”. [Emphasis added.]

However, in his dissent, NLRB member Brian Hayes wrote:

In determining that the Respondent violated the Act by excluding employees of food concessionaire Ark Las Vegas Restaurants from soliciting customer support for their organizational campaign in the interior of Respondent’s hotel and casino complex, they apply a test that artificially equates the Section 7 rights of a contractor’s employees with those of the property owner’s employees, pays only lip service to the owner’s property interests, and gives no consideration to the critical factor of alternative means of communication.

In sum, the majority’s purported balancing test affords as much, if not more, protection to the efforts of Ark employees to engage in union organizational activity on the Respondent’s premises as the Respondent’s own employees would have. [Emphasis added.]

You can read the NLRB’s full decision here.

ALG Urges Senate to Support Isakson Resolution Against Union Organization by Plurality Rule

"This is just the latest example of an agency seizing the power to legislate from Congress. First it was the EPA with the carbon endangerment finding.  Then the National Labor Relations Board opening the door for card check.  And now the National Mediation Board allowing for unionization with less than majority support." – kjm ALG President Bill Wilson.

September 21^st, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today urged the Senate to support a resolution of disapproval against a National Mediation Board rule that allows for union organization at railways and airlines with less than a majority of employees voting "yes."

The resolution of disapproval is being proposed by Senator Johnny Isakson, who in The Hill wrote, "The Obama administration's decision to repeal this rule means that now a minority of the bargaining unit can organize — permanently — the entire organizing unit."

"The National Mediation Board simply does not have the legal authority to make such a radical change without Congressional authorization," Isakson stated in a press release. "With this rule change, a union could be permanently recognized without a majority of employees having ever supported representation."

That is because on May 11^th, 2010, the National Mediation Board repealed the so-called "Majority Rule." Under the old rule, it took a majority of an organizing unit voting "yes" to permanently organize a union.  Now, it only takes a majority of those voting, a considerably lower threshold.

Isakson wrote in The Hill, "[U]nder the Majority Rule, if a bargaining unit had 6,000 employees, 3,001 must have voted for a union to organize the unit. However, under the new rule, if only 1,000 of 6,000 vote, and 501 of those 1,000 vote yes, all 6,000 are permanently unionized, even if a majority of them become disenchanted with the union leadership."

Isakson's resolution is expected to have an up-or-down vote on Thursday under expedited rules.

Wilson said the rule change most likely had been made to accommodate the merger of Delta Airlines and Northwest.  "The new company is 40 percent union, and most of that is from the Northwest employees.  Since they didn't already have a majority, the only way to get a union for the whole company was to change the rules to accommodate a decades-long effort by Big Labor to unionize Delta."

According to CNN Money, "Unlike its competitors, Delta employees have declined to join labor unions in the past, priding themselves on having great relationships with the company and enjoying the freedom to negotiate contracts with managers one on one."

Wilson said that the National Mediation Board had violated their authority under the Railway Labor Act, urging the Senate to "uphold the original intent of the law, which never included allowing a minority of workers at a company to unionize.  The National Mediation Board has clearly stepped out of its statutory role as a neutral arbiter, and into being an advocate on behalf of union organizers."

Wilson's sentiments echoed those of the Chair of the National Mediation Board, Elizabeth Dougherty, who in her dissent wrote, "Regardless of the composition of the board or the inhabitant of the White House, this independent agency has never been in the business of making controversial, one-sided rule changes at the behest of only labor or management."

Wilson said this was "just the latest example of an agency seizing the power to legislate from Congress," concluding, "First it was the EPA with the carbon endangerment finding.  Then the National Labor Relations Board opening the door for card check.  And now the National Mediation Board allowing for unionization with less than majority support."

Attachments:

National Mediation Board Rule Change Summary, Republican Senate staff, September 2010 at www.getliberty.org/files/NMBRuleChangeSummary.pdf.



ALG Joins Senate Republicans in Urging Obama to Rule Out Recess Appointment of Becker

"Craig Becker's legacy will be to achieve via executive fiat what cannot be achieved legislatively, and Barack Obama's recess appointment of him is more than symbolic of that defiance."—ALG President Bill Wilson

March 25^th, 2010—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today joined with the Senate Republican caucus in urging Barack Obama to rule out a recess appointment of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

According to the letter signed by all 41 Republican members of the Senate, "We urge you not to ignore the bipartisan Senate vote by giving Mr. Becker a recess appointment to the NLRB.  Taking this action would place a rejected nominee in an appointed term to the NLRB, setting an unfortunate precedent for all future nominations and future administrations."

Becker's nomination was blocked in the Senate on February 9^th, with Democrat Senators Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson joining 31 other Republicans against the nominee.

"Craig Becker is a radical of the first order, and the Senate was more than justified in blocking his appointment," Wilson said, citing Becker's advocacy of making substantial changes to the National Labor Relations Act via the National Labor Relation Board without any Congressional approval.

According to a report published by Americans for Limited Government, "Militant on a Mission," Becker wrote that "The [National Labor Relations] Board should return to the principle that a union election is not a contest between the employer and the union... Unlike the other proposals, however, it could be achieved with almost no alteration to the statutory framework."

According to the ALG report, "This unilateral imposition of his views regardless of Congressional approval may apply to Card Check legislation as well."

Under current law, the National Labor Relations Act, workers have a right to a secret ballot when unions are organized. Unions have lobbied the Obama administration and Congress for a "card check" system in the EFCA that would eliminate the employer's right to request a secret ballot election, allowing unions to be organized without any ballot.

Becker's highly controversial views resulted in Senate Republicans' opposition against the nomination, and in their letter write, "Mr. Becker's writings clearly indicate that he would use his position on the NLRB to institute far-reaching changes in labor law far exceeding the Board's authority and bypassing the role of Congress."

The letter continues, "His rejection of traditional notions of democracy in union elections and of an employer's status as a party to labor representation proceedings has garnered bi-partisan opposition to his nomination.  His extensive, highly controversial writings, as well as his legal and scholarly career indicate that he could not be viewed as impartial or objective in deciding cases before this quasi-judicial agency."

In 1993, according to the ALG report, Becker also wrote that "employers should have no right to raise questions concerning voter eligibility or campaign conduct" and "employers should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practice case." Both views conflict with longstanding interpretations of national labor relations laws.

Becker's appointment has been described by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as 'the highest priority for organized labor' according to an email released by Jeri Thompson.  The letter was from an SEIU lobbyist to Democratic members of the U.S. Senate.

"That email showed the SEIU setting the Senate's schedule for the Becker confirmation," Wilson explained.  "And now, undeterred by the Senate's rejection of Becker, Barack Obama is prepared to achieve Big Labor's 'highest priority' with a recess appointment."

The AFL-CIO has already called for such an appointment, as reported by the American Spectator.  The Spectator also reports Obama saying, "If the Senate does not act to confirm these nominees, I will consider making several recess appointments during the upcoming recess."

Becker could be recess-appointed during the upcoming Easter recess that will begin on March 29^th.

Becker has served as counsel for both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Becker was also responsible for the drafting of several pro-union executive orders while serving simultaneously on the Barack Obama's presidential transition team and on the SEIU payroll.  One of the orders repealed required federal contractors to post notice that workers do not have to pay for the political expenditures of their unions.

Testifying about the orders, Becker said, "I was asked to provide advice and information concerning a possible executive order of the sort described. I was involved in researching, analyzing, preliminary drafting, and consulting with other members of the Transition team."

Wilson has said that the executive orders "show that Becker's agenda is to achieve via executive regulation what cannot be achieved via the legislative process."

In addition, the ALG report charges that Becker "instituted new policies to force political contributions from union locals in potential violation of the law; was implicated in the scandal surrounding disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich; endured major financial scandals; engaged in alleged intimidation of its members; pursued union contracts that would have prevented unionized nursing home workers from reporting elder abuse; gave millions of dollars to the scandal-plagued group ACORN;  and hired private detectives to spy on union members."

Wilson concluded, "Craig Becker's legacy will be to achieve via executive fiat what cannot be achieved legislatively, and Barack Obama's recess appointment of him is more than symbolic of that defiance."

Attachments:
"Militant on a Mission: Report on Craig Becker, Nominee to the National Labor Relations Board," Americans for Limited Government, January 2010.

ALG Nominee Alert, Craig Becker, August 2009.

WFI Launches Petition Drive Against Becker Recess Appointment

Workforce Fairness Institute Launches Petition Drive Against Becker Recess Appointment

Washington, D.C. (February 11, 2010) – The Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) today launched a national petition drive in an effort to send a message to President Barack Obama that he should not proceed with a recess appointment of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), particularly in light of the bipartisan vote against this extreme and activist nominee:

 “The bipartisan vote in the U.S. Senate against Craig Becker sent a message that our nation’s top job creators – small businesses – come before union bosses and their job-killing policies,” said Katie Packer, executive director of the Workforce Fairness Institute. “While there are certainly instances where a recess appointment is appropriate, the appointment of Craig Becker is not one of them. President Obama should understand that a recess appointment of Becker to the National Labor Relations Board would be a complete contradiction to the jobs message he delivered during the State of the Union address and serve as a slap in the face to courageous Senators, including members of his own Party, who opposed this nomination.” 

To view the Workforce Fairness Institute’s petition, click here <http://www.workforcefairness.com/article/backroom> .

The Workforce Fairness Institute is an organization committed to educating voters, employers, employees and citizens about issues affecting the workplace. To learn more, please visit:http://www.workforcefairness.com .