From the desk of Steve Cabot:

Businesses across America are suffering at the hands of an aggressively pro-union National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). As a result, 86 national business associations and 131 state and city associations have formed the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace. The Coalition’s mission is to amend the National Labor Relations Act, so that businesses can operate at maximum rates of productivity and profitability.

The Coalition supports the Job Protection Act, H. R. 1976, which would, according to an article in the P J Tattler, clarify the NLRA “with respect to state right to work laws, reining the agency in after a series of unprecedented actions that heavily tilt toward Big Labor.”

From allowing micro unions to organize to preventing Boeing from operating in a right-to-work state, from permitting union organizers to trespass on private corporate property to promoting card checks, the NLRB has been proving to be one of the most injurious institutions to the health and growth of American businesses.

We urge all readers of the Cabot Institute of Labor Relations blog to contact their congressional representatives and voice their support for the Job Protection Act, H R 1976.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board’s decision to prevent Boeing from opening a new out-of-state manufacturing facility has apparently inspired other workers to file complaints with the Board.

The American Guild of Musical Artists has now filed a federal complaint against the New York City Opera, which wants to move out of its famed Lincoln Center home after 45 years. The opera company is in serious financial difficulty and deeply in debt. Not only will the company move to a more affordable space, but it plans to reduce the number of operas it will stage next year, from five to three.

The opera company’s 200 members, including fifty choristers and ten production workers, are claiming that the move to a less expensive venue and the company’s intention to produce fewer operas than last season will result in reduced pay.

Of course, it will: that’s the point of restructuring. If the company is to survive and continue providing first-class opera performances to opera goers, it must cut costs. And one of its major costs is its labor expenses.

One can now expect that unionized workers of any company that wants to relocate to file a complaint with the NLRB. The Boeing decision has opened a Pandora’s Box of complaints that will continue to place obstacles against new opportunities not only for increasing profitability and productivity, but also (in this case) against a corporation’s very survival.

Corporate America can only hope that the NLRB does not approve this latest operatic complaint. It is an aria sung out of tune with logic.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

In Columbus, Mississippi, permanent replacement workers have taken up the anti-union banner: they want to decertify the union at Omnova Solutions, Inc., a maker of upholstery products.

A petition for decertification has been filed; and after a four-to-six week period awaiting approval of the petition by the NLRB, more than 100 workers could vote in a secret ballot election to make the company non-union, following a year-long strike that has had a negative effect on the company’s bottom line.

This is another example of American workers being fed up with unrealistic union demands, especially during a period of high unemployment when workers are desperate to earn a living, to pay their expenses, and put food on dinner tables. Only high-handed union officials seem unconcerned with the day-to-day problems of the unemployed. It’s time for all American workers to say no to unionization and yes to full employment.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The attorneys general of nine right-to-work states, where workers cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment, have issued a statement condemning a wrong-headed ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that prevents Boeing from building its Dreamliner 787 in South Carolina. The states are South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. Alan Wilson, the Attorney General of South Carolina, wrote: “The only justification for the NLRB’s unprecedented retaliatory action is to aid union survival.” We could not agree more.

As we recently reported, Boeing chose to open a manufacturing facility in South Carolina because several strikes in Washington had not only significantly delayed the company’s production goals by many months, but had also cost the company tens of millions of dollars. South Carolina provides a more business friendly environment than does the state or Washington.

As a corporation operating in a free-market economy, Boeing has the right to operate a manufacturing facility wherever it wants, especially as it contributes to the welfare of its employees and to a profitable bottom line. It is an essential element of our capitalistic heritage. And we support the right of all corporations to do business wherever they want, not someplace chosen by the NLRB, catering to the demands of unions, such as the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which has applauded the NLRB’s decision.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

Though Republican congressional representatives have expressed their displeasure at the overtly pro-union rules and regulations issued by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), they failed to cut the Board’s budget.
The vigorously negotiated budget deal that was recently agreed upon has exempted the NLRB from the budget cutter’s scalpel, thus leaving intact a major obstacle to the economic well-being of Corporate America. There had been vigorous lobbying to cut the Board’s budget, but union lobbyists may have outspent their opponents, leaving former union attorney Craig Becker to direct the NLRB’s actions in accordance with the wishes of organized labor.
The Wall Street Journal had reported earlier this year that the GOP intended to cut the Board’s annual budget by $50 million, which would have amounted to 1/5 of its overall budget.
Not only has the proposed budget cut not materialized, but the Board has actually experienced an increase in funding. The result, unfortunately, will be that that Board will be energized by the unfulfilled threats of its opponents and its increased budget; it will continue on its pro-union, anti-management war path. Its actions, no doubt, will prove pernicious to the economic growth of the country.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

Angela Greiling Keane reported on Bloomberg News that the U. S. Postal Service negotiated a 4 ½ year contract with the American Postal Workers, which has 202,000 members. She quotes Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, as stating: “We have deep concerns that some of the provisions of the contract may in fact be the wrong direction, to less flexibility, less ability to trim the workforce and less ability to in the future make the kinds of investments we need to make.”

The new contract will not stem the tide of enormous losses; and it will certainly not lead to a renaissance of profitability for the postal service, which has suffered losses for the last five quarters. Its labor costs are a whopping 80% of its total budget, while labor costs for UPS are 69% of its operating budget, and 43% for the operating budget of FedEx, which is staffed by a combination of employees and independent contractors.

Until the postal service can bring its labor costs in line with private sector employers such as UPS and FedEx, it will continue to run huge billion-dollar deficits. The sorry state of the U. S. Postal Service is just another example of how public-sector unions drive companies into the ground. The goals of the governors of Ohio and Wisconsin should become the goals of a fiscally responsible federal government.

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FROM THE DESK OF STEPHEN CABOT:

Each new decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) confirms its agenda to advance the cause of organized labor. The latest such decision follows a union election that took place in 2008. At that time, the Communications Workers of America won a 14 to 12 vote to represent the workers at MasTech Direct TV.

A number of employees who did not want to vote for union representation reported that pro-unionists threatened physical violence against them and their families if they carried out their intention to vote against the union. Each of the threats was documented.

In years past, the NLRB would overturn an election if either side had voiced threats of physical violence in an effort to affect an election outcome. Now, however, the NLRB has decided not to abrogate the aforesaid election because it does not meet a confusing and abstruse set of criteria set by the NLRB. In other words, documented evidence of threats is no longer considered prima facie evidence. So much for the rule of law!

The NLRB continues to spearhead its aggressive pro-union campaign to let unions organize as many employees as possible with opportunistic disregard for well-established precedents.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has threatened to sue four states for ensuring that workers can enjoy a basic democratic right to cast secret ballots when it come s to the possibility of unionization. The four states, South Dakota, South Carolina, Arizona, and Utah, have mandated the use of secret ballots in union elections.

The NLRB has made the Alice-in-Wonderland assertion that secret ballots violate federal law. Though Congress has refused to pass the Employee Free Choice Act that would have permitted unions to coerce workers into signing “card checks” to ensure union representation, the NLRB has repeatedly looked for opportunities to present unions with opportunities to impose the use of “card checks” on workers, who may not want to join a union.

Indeed, the most effective tactic that workers have against forced unionization is the secret ballot. No union organizer gets to coerce, embarrass, or intimidate a worker to join a union when the workers’ preferences are made oblique by casting secret, anonymous ballots.

We back the efforts of Minnesota Republican Representative John Kline to amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) with the passage of the Secret Ballot Protection Act. While the Republican dominated House of Representatives very well may pass the amendment, the Democrats in the Senate will not pass it. Corporate America, therefore, will have to wait until the election of 2012 to be delivered from the high-handed, pro-union actions of the NLRB. Meanwhile, it is essential that corporations put in place survival strategies that prevent labor relations problems before they arise.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

After years of often provocative and aggressive organizing efforts, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has finally had its efforts circumscribed. While the NLRB had recently informed Corporate America that it must post information about workers’ rights to join unions that same NLRB has surprisingly and uncharacteristically informed the SEIU that it cannot prevent workers, who do not support its activities, from working. At Morehouse College in Atlanta, the SEIU had been trying to organize the workers of Sodexo, which operates the college’s dining facilities.

The NLRB ordered SEIU to post notices that it not “restrain or coerce” employees “in the exercise of their rights guaranteed” under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which includes the right not to engage in union activities.

Following an SEIU organized demonstration at the college, Sodexo had complained to the NLRB that there was an effort by the SEIU to prevent employees, who chose not to participate in the demonstration, from coming to work in the college’s dining facilities.

While this is certainly an unusual action for the pro-union NLRB, one cannot expect the Board to continue being fair and balanced and stick to the letter and spirit of the National Labor Relations Act. The Board’s majority composition remains decidedly pro-union.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is weighing the advantages to workers of reversing a rule that provided for a 45-day window to file election or decertification petitions, so that workers may not be influenced in their decisions by their employers. It’s obvious that the NLRB wants to increase the number of unionized workers by limiting the amount of time that employers will have to educate workers about the disadvantages of unionization.
Craig Becker, a dyed-in-the-wool union advocate, says that he has not reached a final decision. Yet, for a man who has vociferously promoted unionization, it’s difficult to believe that he will not shorten the 45-day window of opportunity. Craig Becker has labored diligently to ensure that employers’ abilities to influence union elections be minimized, if not eliminated.
In the spirit of the question, “Do you want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?” Craig Becker had told a senate hearing that he would recuse himself from decisions that would benefit his former employers, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO. And now that Republican-appointed, NLRB member Peter Schaumber’s term has expired, the Craig Becker pro-union agenda is about to shift into high gear and speed up decisions that will benefit big labor. If there is any governmental institution whose actions will further drive manufacturers to foreign countries, it is the NLRB.

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