Obama Admin Rolls Dice With Jobs, Plays Risky Economic Game

WASHINGTON, D.C. // AUGUST 30, 2011 // Today, President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board issued two stunningly unfair, anti-growth decisions as former NLRB chair Wilma Liebman’s term expired. The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace warned the apparently rushed decisions will harm employees, employers, and America’s economic recovery.

In a crucial case, Specialty Healthcare, Obama’s Board voted 3-1 to help labor organizers create swarms of “micro-union” campaigns by changing rules regarding how similar employees are counted with respect to bargaining units. Now, said CDW chairman Geoffrey Burr, “this added burden and uncertainty will only dampen the ability and interest of entrepreneurs and employers to create jobs and spur an economic recovery.”

In another decision, Lamons Gasket, the NLRB ruled 3-1 to roll back the right of employees to petition for an election when an employer and union agreed to a representation arrangement via “card check.” As CDW Burr said, “The Lamons decision further erodes a key workplace right for employees who want access to a federally protected secret ballot election.”

“Both decisions,” Burr said, “appear to be politically motivated and hastily assembled so that they could be published before the end of Liebman’s term and would have been well served to be more fully considered.”

Burr concluded, “These decisions not only fail to promote workplace democracy, but they also will do nothing to aid in puting Americans back to work or get the economy headed in the right direction.”