|
|
In this issue:
Union Bailout Update Bill Would Permit Merit Pay in Union Shops Machinists Striking Once a Member Always a Member Labor Relations Insight, Sticky Fingers and more…
NOTICE: You can make a PDF of this issue of INK directly from the post. Click here for instructions on how to do so.
http://lrionline.com/easy-way-to-make-our-posts-and-ink-issues-into-pdfs
**********
Labor Relations Insight by Phillip Wilson
What have we learned in the first week of the “ambush election” rules?
There are two questions I’ve been asked a lot over the last couple of months, and especially in the last week:
Will petitions increase after the new “ambush election” rules go into effect? How far will election times decrease under the new “ambush election” rules?
Here’s what we’ve seen
Continue reading INK May 10, 2012
 President Obama addressed the AFL-CIO Building Trades Conference in D.C. last week, reminding his (last remaining) base that he’s been hard at work trying to create (only) union jobs for the past three years using the double-edged sword of federal PLAs and (unfunded) infrastructure spending.
Obama reminded the packed ballroom of union officers, staff and crazies that his administration has removed all federal bans on PLAs (making them then essentially mandatory). The President also promised “as long as I’m your president I’m going to keep it up” presumably referring to his bountiful favors for his very favorite special interest.
Obama went on, amid cheers and thunderous applause, to accuse Republicans of setting their sights on dismantling “unions like yours.” (Gee. Ya think?) He also credited collective
Continue reading Obama Goes Courting
 Since those controversial “recess” appointments that kicked off the new year it’s been quiet over at the NLRB – almost too quiet – but not anymore.
On March 15, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asked the Court of Appeals to add its recess appointment challenge to an appeal of a Board ruling against a small bottling company in Washington State, Noel Canning. The Chamber will challenge the constitutionality of the President’s emergency “recess” appointments, arguing in part that the appointments denied the Senate’s Constitutional right to review all candidates.
Ironically, the one “recess” appointee the Senate did have the opportunity to vet, Republican Terence Flynn was accused last week of breaches of ethical conduct by an internal Board investigation. As a result, Flynn could lose his appointment.
Flynn was
Continue reading Union Bailout Update
 Unions have been yowling about the Citizens United decision since the election of Scott Walker was attributed by Democrats to pro-business Super Pacs and big donor bundlers like the Koch brothers. What rarely gets mentioned is the power the controversial decision gave to labor unions that they will only first fully exploit this election year.
Citizens United gave unions the power to spend union resources attempting to politically influence the general public. Before Citizens United, unions could only campaign for or against a political candidate to their own members. The decision removes that restriction granting unions the same freedom of political speech the new law grants to corporations.
And it appears labor intends to take full advantage of the gift; the AFL-CIO has announced it
Continue reading Unions Made More Powerful by Citizens United
 In what is being viewed as a big victory for Big Labor, a federal judge last week upheld the NLRB poster rule set to go into effect on April 30. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson waved off plaintiff arguments that the poster requirement was an infringement on the First Amendment rights of employers, calling the rule “a reasonable means of promoting awareness” of the right of employees to engage in union activity. “Nothing in the notice posting suggests that employers favor collective bargaining activities, and nothing in the regulation restricts what the employers may say about the board’s policies,” she wrote. The National Federation of Independent Business and other business-interest groups are expected to appeal.
However the judge went on to rule against the NLRB,
Continue reading Union Bailout Update
A motion to dismiss an NLRB injunction was filed in federal court two weeks ago that could prove to be the first real test of the constitutionality of President Obama’s “recess without a recess” appointments to the NLRB.
The new five-member Board requested its first 10(j) injunction on Jan. 25 against Renaissance Equity, the owner of a Brooklyn apartment complex. Renaissance locked out its unionized employees 15 months ago after SEIU 32BJ rejected the company’s request for drastic wage and benefit cuts. The Board’s injunction would force Renaissance to bring back locked out employees at 2010 pay and benefit levels.
The company’s motion to dismiss that injunction argues that the Board “lacks the statutorily required quorum of three members necessary to authorize the filing of the petition” as
Continue reading Union Bailout Update
Senator Rand Paul announced on Monday he was joining the legal challenge of President Obama’s “recess without a recess” appointments to the NLRB. Paul is the first member of the Senate to legally object to the appointments and plans to file a friend-of-the-court brief in support of legal action by the National Federation for Independent Business and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The groups are arguing that the NLRB appointments, and Richard Corday’s appointment to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, are unconstitutional.
“With the recent recess appointments, President Obama has circumvented our Constitution and showed complete disregard for the separation of powers,” Paul said in a statement Tuesday. “He has demonstrated once again that he is willing to treat the office of the presidency like a dictatorship.”
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee will begin hearings this week on the effect the President’s actions may
Continue reading Union Bailout Update
 Democrat strategists are handwringing over the money Big Labor continues to dump in Wisconsin. Public sector unions alone spent at least $15M on the ground last year collecting signatures to recall Governor Scott Walker and tens of millions more went to ad buys. Unions also targeted six Republican congressmen for recall who supported the governor’s budget agenda, generating a flood of political dollars into a state that rarely sees that level spending even in a presidential election year.
After nine months gathering signatures, organizers may have to push for another six months to get to the actual Walker recall election date, probably in late June. Unions will need far more staff on the ground in Wisconsin until then, burning through even more dues dollars
Continue reading Dems Fear Massive Wisconsin Cash Drain
In this issue:
• Union Bailout Update • Yes, America, the Unions Are Killing Your Twinkies • Will the Unions Screw Up the Superbowl? • Laborers Vow Never to Forget Keystone • Picket Line Do’s and Don’ts • Teamsters Watch, Sticky Fingers and more…
NOTICE: You can make a PDF of this issue of INK directly from the post. Click here for instructions on how to do so.
Union Bailout Update
The NLRB held a “meet and greet” on Jan. 12 between lawmakers and the three newly sworn in Board members at the center of the latest NLRB firestorm. Members of Congress were denied the chance to question or even scan the resumes of Richard Griffin and Sharon Block as the two Democrats’ names were only first
Continue reading INK January 19, 2012
The NLRB held a “meet and greet” on Jan. 12 between lawmakers and the three newly sworn in Board members at the center of the latest NLRB firestorm. Members of Congress were denied the chance to question or even scan the resumes of Richard Griffin and Sharon Block as the two Democrats’ names were only first sent to Congress on December 15, the day before the start of the Senate’s pro forma holiday session. (Republican Terence Flynn was nominated last January.)
Less than three weeks after nominating Griffin and Block, on Jan. 3, President Obama lost patience with the process, returning from holiday to invoke his new “We Can’t Wait” doctrine, and seat all three nominees in what just might be his
Continue reading Union Bailout Update
|
