Labor Pains: Because Being in a Union can be Painful

Union Lawyer David Rosenfeld Reveals His True Motives

For months, we’ve suspected that union attorney David Rosenfeld is not truly interested in “conflict of interest” at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). He’s just opposed to any rulings that are not overwhelmingly pro-union.

Well, our suspicions were recently confirmed. A partner at the pro-union law firm Weinberg, Roger, & Rosenfeld and longtime Elizabeth Warren ally, Rosenfeld has now publicly declared that all of the NLRB’s Republican members should sit out board cases. In his words: “Chairman Ring and members Emanuel and Kaplan should immediately cease deciding any board cases.” Describing the NLRB’s Republicans as “outrageous[ly] pro-employer,” Rosenfeld found time to express support for the Board’s two Democratic members—Lauren McFerran and Mark Gaston Pearce—and defend their right to preside over future NLRB cases because “they will not put up with this self-expressed prejudice.”

Rather than upholding decades of legal precedent, Rosenfeld’s modus operandi is to smear NLRB members whom he deems a threat to his union clients—if you disagree with him, just go away. This is the same union lawyer who was publicly “admonished” by the Board for “continually referring to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation as the ‘Right to Freeload Committee,’ ‘The National Right to Shirk Legal Defense Foundation,’ or variations thereon.” As we’ve covered before, Rosenfeld referred to National Right to Work attorneys as “Shirkers.”

The NLRB was not amused. According to the NLRB’s Executive Secretary at the time, the Board “found such offensive epithets inappropriate and a manifest disrespect for the Board’s processes.” Rosenfeld was warned that, if the behavior continued, he could face “possible prosecution” by the Justice Department. (You can see the NLRB documents here.)

It takes a special (and shockingly biased) kind of labor lawyer to be condemned by a bipartisan NLRB. Rosenfeld somehow accomplished it.

Categories: NLRB