‘Labor law still matters,’ NLRB chair says

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4834

By Barb Kucera, Workday editor
4 April 2011

MINNEAPOLIS - While collective bargaining is under attack in many parts of the country, it remains one of the few effective ways to preserve the American middle class, the chair of the National Labor Relations Board said.

The NLRB administers federal law safeguarding the rights of private sector workers to organize unions and bargain contracts. Wilma Liebman, with nearly 14 years on the board, is one of its longest serving members. President Obama named her chair in 2009.


Wilma Liebman

Liebman spoke March 31 at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she discussed the history and role of the National Labor Relations Board. Noting the turmoil that has erupted from Wisconsin to New Hampshire over the question of worker rights, she wished the debate “were less rancorous,” but added, “It has brought back into the public eye, the public discourse.”

‘Product of fierce battles’
While hundreds of thousands have mobilized for rallies and other events sparked by the current debate, the conflict over worker rights is nothing new, Liebman said.

“The NLRB is no stranger to controversy,” she said. “The law is the product of fierce battles, some of them quite bloody.”

In 1935, when Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act and created the NRLB, most workers had no right to a voice on the job. During the worst economic depression in U.S. history, millions marched in the streets, occupied factories and some died in the struggle to win collective bargaining rights.


FULL story at link.