Working Americans Say "Give Us Five"

WASHINGTON, DC — Labor activists filled the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing today to highlight the urgency of confirming a five-member, bipartisan National Labor Relations Board. Wearing red buttons reading, “Give Me 5 NLRB Members,” they demanded that senators simply do their jobs and vote on the nominations — even if that means changing the Senate rules on nominations to break through the gridlock.

"We're not going to just be hopeful that Senate Democrats do the right thing,” said CWA President Larry Cohen. “Progressives of all types understand the system is broken and that many nominations cannot get through the Senate despite majority support.  Working people know that a full-strength NLRB is the first step to justice on the job. And they're fed up. They're fed up with gridlock, and they want their senators to make a difference."

Today a new ad, running in Politico, reads:

It’s time for the Senate majority to confirm the three Democrats and two Republicans who have been nominated to the NLRB so that workers’ rights are protected and labor law is fairly enforced. We have a Democratic President, elected by a strong majority, and a Democratic majority in the Senate. The Senate has the tools it needs to confirm all five members of the Board.

At today’s committee hearing, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) noted of the NLRB’s importance, “the Board is the only place workers can go if they have been treated unfairly and denied the basic protections that the law provides … The Board is just as essential for our nation’s employers … Because this agency is absolutely critical to our country, to our economy, and to our middle class, it is deeply disappointing to see what has happened to the Board in recent years.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said, “If the goal is to prevent the NLRB from functioning, in terms of protecting the rights of American workers, I think we should change the rules and take a majority vote to not only see that these people are seated, so they can do their job, but so other nominees, who have been clearly obstructed also have a chance to do their job.” 

As the coverage below underscores, a fully-functioning NLRB is vital to Americans from all walks of life.

• Editorial, Los Angeles Times, 5/15: “Now that the president is following what the Republicans insist is the proper route for bringing the board up to strength, the question is whether they will respect the process they champion by allowing an up-or-down vote on the nominees — or cynically filibuster the nominations as a way of preventing the NLRB from doing its job … If Republicans are unhappy with the Dodd-Frank law or the National Labor Relations Act, they should seek to amend those statutes directly and not through the back door of the confirmation process.”

• Ian Millhiser, Think Progress, 5/16: “Without federal labor law, nothing prevents employers from engaging in the most ruthless purges of unions seen in this country since before the New Deal. And all that Senate Republicans need to do to maintain this status quo is to keep filibustering President Obama’s nominees. Recently, several Senate Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) raised the idea of a second round of filibuster reform to ensure that Senate Republicans do not have the power to unilaterally obstruct nominees. If Reid cannot assemble the 51 votes he needs to enact such reforms, then every Democrat who opposes filibuster reform has likely voted to strip workers of their rights.”

• Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post, 5/14: “As HuffPost reported in March, the obstruction of the labor board has indeed hurt plenty of people outside the Beltway, with scores of cases hung up in court ultimately because of the president's inability to make clean board appointments. One group of miners in West Virginia who were illegally discriminated against for being union members have waited nearly a decade for their case to be resolved, with two favorable decisions either thrown out or stayed because of procedural problems at the board. Labor leaders have held up the near-paralysis of the labor board as just one of many reasons to change Senate rules, which currently allow the minority party to block any legislation, nominees or appointments they choose.”

• Laura Clawson, Daily Kos, 5/15: “Congressional Republicans are committed to breaking government one step at a time, and it's a given that anything that attacks workers as well as the function of government will vault to the head of the line. So it is with the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB can't function without a three-member quorum. Republicans blocked President Obama's nominations to the board. Obama made recess appointments. Businesses sued and a Republican-appointed court overturned the recess appointments in a staggeringly broad decision. That's being appealed to the Supreme Court. Obama nominated some more people to the NLRB and renominated the recess-appointed people. Republicans look likely to block those nominations. Meanwhile, one current member's term expires in August, which will leave the labor board unable to function.”

• Kevin Bogardus, The Hill, 5/14: “The clock is ticking. Without Senate action by August, the NLRB will be left with just two members, which isn’t enough to form a quorum and take official actions. With Senate Republicans blocking many of Obama’s nominees, including those to the NLRB, unions fear the labor board will soon be left in a state of paralysis.”

• David Moberg, In These Times, 5/15: “[R]elatively few people realize how relentlessly, if quietly, business has fought to eliminate hard-earned worker rights and to prevent any serious discussion of expanding protections to include those in most other advanced economies, such as the requirement that employers to demonstrate a just cause for any dismissal.”

Visit www.GiveUs5NLRB.org for more information.