Coalition for a Democratic Workplace - Home

I introduced H.R. 1120, the Preventing Greater Uncertainty in Labor-Management Relations Act. This bill is simple. It would require the Board to cease all activity until the legal issues surrounding the legitimacy of the so-called recess appointments are resolved. The legislation would also require a Senate-confirmed quorum (3 members) to review all the decisions the Board made while the appointments were in question. The House is scheduled to vote on this legislation later this week, and I hope this bill will help achieve the certainty workers deserve.

Since winning the election in 2008 and taking the oath of office, President Obama has preoccupied himself with rewarding his friends in Big Labor as opposed to concerning himself with sending a message to job creators that they have an ally in Washington, D.C. The best example of this is a little known agency named the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The president has run roughshod over the Constitution and has damaged the integrity of the board, harming our nation’s workforce in the process. A broken board can be made whole if President Obama sets aside politics and works with the U.S. Senate to seat qualified nominees. The president created this crisis, and it is time he addressed it.

Although he often talks as if Congress is an inconvenient distraction, the president has been reminded that he does not reign supreme and must actually share power with the legislature. The decision throws into doubt the validity of a slew of egregiously pro-union decisions by the board.

When former SEIU Associate General Counsel Craig Becker left his post at the National Labor Relations Board in December 2011, he quickly segued into a cushy job as the AFL-CIO’s co-general counsel.

The National Labor Relations Board isn’t suffering for work, but President Obama’s appointees at this arbiter of labor relations are nonetheless grabbing a vast new mission: Regulating the workplaces of companies that have no union at all.

One hallmark of the Obama Presidency is its habit of running roughshod over Congressional prerogatives. A test of that arrogation of power comes Wednesday when the Administration has to defend its imperial treatment of recess appointments in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

To tell all business owners in the United States that it is unlawful to ask off-duty employees why they want access to the employer’s premises demonstrates just how out of balance this Board has become. But as long as Barack Obama is President of the United States, he will appoint extremists to the National Labor Relations Board. Business confidence will continue to erode, and the once-vibrant American economy will be replaced with a stagnant economy dominated by government bureaucrats.

Employers nationwide, take notice: The U.S. Department of Labor is bringing partisan politics to your lawyer’s office. The DOL is close to making a change to an obscure labor law. If it is enacted, you should prepare to make some of your company’s most private information public.