Unions overplayed their hand at NLRB

Red States:

Union bosses are worried, and rightly so. Very soon, the club that union bosses have been using to beat employers over the head with to change the labor relations landscape in America may get taken away from them and they are not happy. The problem is, union bosses wrote the playbook and their strategy is now coming back to haunt them–in spades.

In 2007, when vacancies began to occur at the National Labor Relations Board, union allies in the U.S. Senate blocked confirmation of President Bush’s nominees, knowing that a Democrat president would likely win the 2008 election who would then stack the NLRB with pro-union appointees.

On the day of his 2009 inauguration, Barack Obama appointed Teamster attorney and long-time NLRB member Wilma Liebman to the top spot of the NLRB.

Shortly thereafter, Obama nominated SEIU and AFL-CIO counsel Craig Becker. Republicans, deploying the Democrats’ strategy of not giving in to union bosses’ prized nominee, turned the tables on union bosses by blocking Obama’s nominees.

Meanwhile, as legislation in Congress that would effectively eliminate secret ballot elections by use of card check failed, using the National Labor Relations Board to change the nation’s labor laws by regulatory fiat became union bosses’ principle weapon to alter the downward trajectory of private-sector union membership.

Frustrated by their inability to use the agency as they intended, union bosses convinced Obama to controversially unilaterally declare the Senate in recess and appoint his chosen members to the NLRB.

Now, with the Supreme Court deciding last week to weigh in on Obama’s appointments to the NLRB, union bosses are preparing themselves for a possibility that the NLRB may case stop functioning entirely after August 27th–when union attorney and current NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce’s term expires.

Since, the Supreme Court ruled–thanks to union and Democrat shenanigans in 2007-08–that the NLRB must have at least three sitting members in order to function, with Pearce’s departure, the NLRB will only have two members–a catastrophe to union bosses.

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The unions think they are going to lose on the recess appointment gambit and they should.  The Court will likely find that Congress is the sole determiner wo when it is in session.   The unions have been engaged in thuggish tactics to try to stay relevant in an economy that has passed them by.  They should move on and deal with the new reality.