Obama NLRB Overturns Bush-era Decisions Re: Union Rights & Organizing

[amborin]

Obama NLRB Overturns Bush-era Decisions, Protects Union Rights, Allows Nursing Home Workers to Organize
The National Labor Relations Board under Obama continues to quietly make decisions that support workers over big business.

August 31, 2011

It looks like the National Labor Relations Board has decided to get in as many decisions as it can before December, when current member Craig Becker's term ends and the Board is down to two members, a level at which the Supreme Court has ruled it can't issue rulings. Republicans, of course, are vowing to block any nominees, so the Board is likely to stay at two members for the foreseeable future.

The NLRB has issued three more rulings following last week's announcement that employers would be required to notify workers of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Two of Tuesday's rulings overturn Bush-era NLRB rulings, both having to do with union decertifications.

The Lamons Gasket decision reestablishes a waiting period between when workers vote to join a union and when a decertification challenge to that union can occur:

For over forty years, federal law had barred challenges to a union’s representative status for a "reasonable period" following voluntary recognition, in order to give the new bargaining relationship a chance to succeed. In its 2007 decision in Dana Corp., the Board allowed for an immediate challenge to the union’s status by 30% of employees or a rival union. Today’s decision in Lamons Gasket returns the Board to the law as it existed before Dana Corp.

Similarly, the Bush NLRB had ruled in 2002 that if a company came under new ownership, a preexisting union could be immediately challenged by the new owner, 30 percent of employees, or a rival union. Tuesday's UGL-UNICCO Service Company ruling reestablishes a reasonable waiting period in which the union is protected from challenge.

snip

http://www.alternet.org/story/152250/obama_nlrb_overturns_bush-era_decisions%2C_protects_union_rights%2C_allows_nursing_home_workers_to_organize/


wish Obama had done MUCH more, but this is nothing to sniff at

[bluestateguy]

1. Just watch the "about fucking time" responses to follow

Just watch.

[Historic NY]

5. Must be those who didn't like his board picks....

I'm beginning to think we have embedded trolls.

[Starry Messenger]

2. k&r

[TeamsterDem]

3. It is nothing to sniff at, but the problem - and I'm not blaming Obama - is that

Whomever the next Republican president is (whenever that might be) can simply replace the majority on the board with his own and I'll bet anyone on this board or any other that they overturn this again. It's great that Obama appointed a pro-labor board. But decisions like these aren't set in stone. Still, I agree that he deserves props for appointing a pro-labor majority.

[Exilednight]

4. Sadly, though, the White House is distancing themselves from the NLRB. I heard a WH spokesperson on

NPR state that, and I paraphrase because I forget the exact quote, "the WH has nothing to do with these decisions, the NLRB is an independent body and does not seek guidance from the WH."

[amborin]

6. i suspect that is b/c of right's attack on the NLRB's decision re: Boeing

did you read that editorial by Joe Nocera last week in the ny times?

Title was "How Dems Lose US Jobs" (or something similar, can't remember now). Was a disgusting attack on the NLRB's decision to challenge Boeing's retaliatory move to the right to work state of Carolina.

[Exilednight]

8. That doesn't surprise me. I ususally skip the Editorials in the NYT except for Krugman and Kristof.

[Major Hogwash]

7. "Republicans, of course, are vowing to block any nominees, . . "

Unbelievable.

If this happens, it had better be screamed on every mainstream media outlet that exists.
This affects every fricking worker in the country!!

[vaberella]

9. I rec'ed this in a GDP section, but since I can't rec...here's a kick. n/t