Pincer Move From DOL and NLRB Set To Crush Employers, Jobs

WASHINGTON, D.C. // June 22, 2011 // Today, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) denounced the White House’s apparent strategy on behalf of its benefactors in Big Labor that “if you can’t win fairly, rig the rules of the game.”

Within the last few days, the administration has unleashed its most recent coordinated assault on American business. It appears that the White House made its latest sop to Big Labor by proposing dramatic federal rule changes within the Department of Labor and the ostensibly independent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), all with the goal of silencing employers and depriving employees of time and information to consider whether or not they want to be represented by a union.

In addition to its costly new regulatory burden in an already-struggling economy, the Department of Labor’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would deter small businesses from picking up the phone and contacting their attorney when presented with a union organizing drive out of fear that even that conversation may trigger disclosure of detailed information about the company’s employees and finances – information that will become public. The rule would effectively limit small business access to confidential advice, legal and otherwise, when faced with the seemingly limitless resources of large unions, further complicating the regulatory maze facing America’s job creators.

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s announcement by the NLRB that it would attempt to restructure virtually the entire manner in which representation cases are handled — from substantially reducing the amount of time employees and employers may communicate prior to the election, to limiting the opportunity for full evidential hearings on key issues such as voter eligibility, appropriateness of the unit, and election misconduct. The changes are clearly designed to and would radically tilt the scales in favor of Big Labor at the expense of both employees and employers.

“The fact that the administration is so clearly coordinating a simultaneous pincer movement to deprive employers of options and employees of information signals that they and their allies in Big Labor bosses view this as a war against business” said CDW chairman Geoffrey Burr.

Burr concluded, “We wish the administration would show as much determination in creating jobs as it does to hunting and killing every reasonable means employees have to remaining union-free.”