LaborPains.org

Credit: Rian Castillo

Just how pushy can unions get when trying to organize new members? For the United Auto Workers, the answer is as simple as it is audacious: they orchestrated a mock card check election, make employees believe unionization was inevitable, and did it all with the complicity of public officials.

Luckily for employees, they were going up against Donald Trump. Their scheme targeted 11 casinos in Atlantic City—including gambling-floor employees of Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc. After the UAW pulled off an unsurprising election win, Trump filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

Unsurprisingly, the NLRB required Trump to sit down with the union. Instead, he appealed—and, now, the United States Court of Appeals in Washington has ruled in his favor, reversing the NLRB and admonishing the UAW.

Blaming the NLRB for ignoring “substantial circumstantial evidence,” the Court’s three empaneled judges have told the NLRB to review Trump’s claim that the UAW misled voting workers with the mock card check charade.

This stinging rebuke of the NLRB and the UAW is more than a victory for one of America’s most highly visible celebrities. It’s a win for the casino workers who were misled.

Credit: Crazy George

Every Senate Democrat voted against a Republican measure to nullify the National Labor Relations Board’s controversial ruling in favor of “quickie” or “ambush” votes on unionization.

Labor experts believe the NLRB rule will slash the time between calling and holding an election from 40 days to as few as 14. There has been an outcry from Republicans who believe that “the new rules will lead to ‘ambush’ elections that barely leave company managers enough time to respond or counsel against forming a union.”

Senate Democrats gave the impression that they’re unafraid of the consequences at the ballot box for their stand. Though Republicans had little chance of passing the amendment in the Democratic-controlled Senate, it forced some Democrats who face tough re-election bids to take a stand on an issue important to business groups. While the chances of the amendment passing were slim, President Obama still threatened a veto on the measure.

Earlier this month, a judge ruled that private businesses are required to display posters showing workers how to unionize. With the ruling going into effect on April 30, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has plans for a big campaign around the change.

Notably, the mandated poster doesn’t explain how to decertify a union—a right which many workers also might like to know. But details like that don’t trouble the NLRB. Apparently, it’s busy concentrating on getting nonunionized workers to think like union members:

The National Labor Relations Board will focus on workers’ rights to engage in ‘protected concerted activity,’ which allow two or more employees to take action for their mutual aid or protection […]. In the next two weeks, the NLRB is set to roll out a Web page explaining ‘concerted activity’ and highlighting cases involving unlawful punishment for it. It also plans pamphlets in English and Spanish that will be distributed through worker-advocacy groups and sister federal agencies, such as the Labor Department. NLRB officials will address the issue in speeches and appearances on radio and television. (The Wall Street Journal, 3/22/12)

These developments come on the heels of the NLRB’s controversial “quickie elections” rule, which the Retail Industry Leaders Association calls a blow not only to “employers’ free speech and due process rights” but also “American business’ ability to grow jobs.”

The NLRB has had no difficulty making these moves despite the Obama administration’s recent order to avoid overly burdensome requirements. While the White House denies that it’s encouraging overregulation, the NLRB is swinging into action—an institution with a very particular idea of what labor relations should be, and unafraid to tip the scales in order to make it reality.

In a bizarre twist of events, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Union – yes, the agency responsible for remaining neutral in employer-union disputes is staffed by unionized employees – is accusing the Board of “declaring war on NLRB employees.”

In a flyer, the union urges NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce and Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon to “practice what they preach,” and stop trying to destroy worker’s rights.

After being appointed, Pearce publically proclaimed his plans to push for new rules that would give unions a boost in organizing members. So, what are these ‘rights’ that the NLRB is denying its union?

For one, the NLRB has decided to cut “official time” by 85 percent. “Official time” is time used to conduct union business at taxpayer expense. The NLRB also wants to have the decision to cut “incentive pay”, if managers deem necessary.

If the dispute isn’t resolved, it will most likely be taken up with the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

While Republicans and Business groups have found issue with Pearce’s obvious bias in favor of unions, it will be interesting to see if the Chair has a change of heart after his own run-in with unreasonable union demands. Don’t hold your breath.

While the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has always maintained the façade of being neutral, the emboldened new chair has decided to let his true colors show by publicly disclosing a very pro-union agenda. Despite heavy opposition from business groups and Republicans, Mark Peirce, NLRB chairman, will push for new rules that would make it easier to organize new members.

“I knew this was going to happen,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy, (R-SC) , a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “The NLRB has lost all pretense of objectivity in my judgment.”

In what seems like a complete invasion of privacy, Pearce wants to implement new rules requiring businesses to hand over lists of employee phone numbers and emails to union leaders prior to an election. Pierce also hopes to speed up the process for holding a vote to unionize after signatures are collected.

“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,” said Randel Johnson, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president on labor issues.

Pearce says he wants the NLRB to become “a household word” for all workers, not just those affiliated with organized labor. If he continues down his path of hyper-partisan politics and power grabs, he might just get what he’s wishing for. However, most households probably won’t be talking about the agency in a positive light.

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) legal efforts to derail The Boeing Company from opening a new production plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, prompted 41 Republican senators to retaliate against President Obama and his pro-union NLRB. The senators wrote in a letter to Obama last Thursday that they’d “use all procedural tools available to defeat” the confirmations of two board members unless he withdrew their nominations immediately.

Specifically, the senators vowed to oppose the nominations of the board’s Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon and board member Craig Becker, a former attorney who has represented both the AFL-CIO and Service Workers International Union (SEIU), who we’ve written about before.

For a hint at just how frustrated the 41 senators are, here’s a bit more of the letter sent by them to President Obama:

The Senate has been unacceptably denied the ability to exercise its constitutional duty of advice and consent in regards to the NLRB.

In light of the NLRB’s recent actions that would have a deleterious effect on job creation and economic opportunity across the country, it is time to hold the NLRB accountable.

We urge you to withdraw both Mr. Solomon’s and Mr. Becker’s nominations to their respective positions immediately.

If not, we will vigorously oppose both nominations, vote against cloture and use all procedural tools available to defeat their confirmation in the Senate. …

Is this move against Boeing what President Obama meant when he told the AFL-CIO in August 2010 that he was going to “restore some balance” to the NLRB and make it easier for workers in the aerospace industry to unionize? It certainly seems that way.

Image courtesy of: vgm8383

You might have thought President Obama intended to be conciliatory after his fairly moderate State of the Union Address. Think again. This morning the president fired the first shot in the this year’s inevitable partisan battle over labor unions:

Craig Becker, a Democrat on the U.S. National Labor Relations Board who has been criticised by business groups for his ties to unions, was re-nominated by President Barack Obama to serve until 2014.

Becker, a lawyer who represented the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union, was appointed in March by Obama after the U.S. Senate failed to confirm his nomination. Republicans and some Democrats sought to block Becker after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups objected to his academic writings proposing that unions get more power.

The appointment, made during a Senate recess, is set to expire this year and a fresh nomination was required. If confirmed, Becker would serve on the board, which handles disputes between unions and companies, until December 2014.

But a fresh nomination wasn’t required. Becker is a political hot potato whose nomination Republicans fiercely (and successfully) battled. His notoriety stems primarily from an article in the Minnesota Law Review where he essentially argued that employers should be shut out of the unionization elections completely.

In that sense, Becker is a perfect fit for Obama’s vision of the NLRB, which has been discussing limiting employers’ role over their own workers with everything from quickie elections to enforcing a back door card check. Unions believe that if they exclude employers from the unionization process, they can convince far more workers to unionize and ensure their survival. Becker on the NLRB is Obama’s way of giving them a leg up.

Welcome home, Mr. Becker.

In October 2009, UNITE HERE hotel workers in San Francisco voted to go on strike against several hoteliers. The workers organized ostensibly because they don’t feel the hotels are doing enough for them to cover health care costs.

But the hotels aren’t the only ones supposedly depriving them of benefits. UNITE HERE was caught diverting money from a union benefit fund to spend on their strikes:

After the National Labor Relations Board brought a legal case against Unite Here Local 2, which represents 12,000 hotel employees in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, the union agreed to reverse its actions and restore the monies to the proper funds with interest, hotel spokesman Pete Hillan said in a written statement.

In May, the Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency complained about the practice to the NLRB, and the agency subsequently intervened, Hillan said. Before the union redirected the funds, the money had been going to fund child care and elder care.

“One million dollars is a lot of money to chase business away from San Francisco,” San Francisco Grand Hyatt General Manager David Nadelman said Tuesday at the first of two dueling news conferences at the Union Square Grand Hyatt.

The employees are striking primarily over a reduction in health benefits. Organized labor has reacted with outrage when states don’t fully fund their benefit funds. Alleged attempts to “raid the Social Security and Medicare funds” have also elicited dramatic responses from unions.

There can only be one solution. In order for UNITE HERE to be consistent, it has to go on strike against itself. Any business or government willing to raid its employees’ benefits for cynical purposes must be taught a lesson. That’s their talking point, right?

Image courtesy of Marshall Astor.