Labor board (NLRB) headed for gridlock again as GOP prevents recess appointments

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-government/labor-board-headed-for-gridlock-again-as-gop-prevents-recess-appointments/2011/10/28/gIQAiO0tPM_story.html

By Associated Press, Published: October 28

WASHINGTON — Frustrated with union-friendly decisions from the National Labor Relations Board, Republicans hope to cut off the agency’s power by denying President Barack Obama the chance to name members while the Senate is in recess.

The five-member board is now down to three members, and another will leave at the end of the year. The remaining two members could not legally issue decisions or make new rules.

“What they would be doing quite explicitly is trying to keep an agency from functioning through this maneuver,” said former board member Wilma Liebman, a Democratic appointee whose term ended in August.

For months, House Republicans have convened brief, pro forma sessions whenever Congress is away to prevent the Senate from going into a full recess. The tactic has kept Obama from using recess appointments to bypass the Senate to name members of the labor board, choose a new chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and appoint other officials unlikely to win Senate confirmation.

The labor board is a lightning rod in the ideological war between businesses and unions over the right of workers to organize. But the long-simmering conflict has boiled over this year. Republicans say the board has taken unprecedented steps that are unacceptable to business.

FULL story at link.