Former Reagan NLRB Member Slams Board

A management lawyer who served as a Reagan appointee to the National Labor Relations Board criticized a Sept. 29 decision by the Bush board that lowered the NLRB's longtime recognition bar doctrine when workers gain representation in a card check. Their ruling gives workers and rival unions a 45-day period after card check recognition to file a decertification or election petition. Beforehand, such petitions were barred for one year after recognition.

The former member, Marshall Babson, questioned the board's "premise" for changing the recognition bar noting that card checks have their basis in voluntary recognition which "goes back to 1935" and the passage of the National Labor Relations Act. "There is nothing in the statute that requires opposition to organization," said Babson.