Who Wants to Kill the NLRB? And What?s Next?

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that there has been a real campaign underway for decades to eliminate workers' rights to join a union and bargain for better wages and conditions.

Back in the early 1980s, private sector workers and unions were attacked by million-dollar law firms that made union-busting a huge corporate growth industry, all under the watchful eye of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Having succeeded in bringing down private sector collective bargaining coverage to 6.6 percent, this assault, over the past few years, has been turned on public workers. Teachers and hospital workers became the villains who were bankrupting state governments, not the 1 percent and corporations that don't pay taxes.

Last year, airline and transportation workers saw Congress change federal labor law to make it even harder for workers to get to a union election.

Don't kid yourself. Corporations and their right wing supporters are coming after all union workers, whether we work for an airline, a private company or a state government.

Today it's the NLRB. Here's what the opposition is doing:

Politicians

• In each Senate session since 2007, when Senate Democrats took over the majority, there has been a record number of Republican filibusters, on nominations and legislative issues. Only one sitting NLRB member has been confirmed by the Senate; his term expires Aug. 27.
  
  
• Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.): "The NLRB as inoperable could be considered progress."
  
  
• House Republicans pushed through H.R. 1120, a bill that would essentially shut down the NLRB. Piling on the appeals court decision, the legislation seeks to freeze all NLRB activities that require a quorum of board members. It would also bar the NLRB from enforcing any decisions it has made since Jan. 4, 2012, when President Obama made recess appointments to the Board.
  
  
• Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney: The NLRB is a tool of the "union bosses," packed with "union stooges."

Corporations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its South Carolina affiliate challenged the NLRB's 2011 rule that required employers to post a notice describing workers' rights under the National Labor Relations Act. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the challenge and said the NLRB didn't have the right to inform workers of their rights under the law. The DC Circuit, with three Republican members and four vacancies, also threw out that posting, saying it would violate employers' "free speech" rights.
  
  
• That same DC Circuit Court found President Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB to be invalid in its Noel Canning decision. Since then, many corporations are choosing to ignore the NLRB's directives and orders.
  
  
• Cablevision filed a lawsuit to block the NLRB from taking any action on the complaints that two regional boards have issued.
  
  
• Inside Counsel, a publication for lawyers, spells it out: "President Barack Obama's first term saw a spate of pro-labor rulings emerging from the National Labor Relations Board. The board's rulings, including regulations covering social media, union elections and right-to-work issues, worried employers and Republican legislators alike." (emphasis added.)