Posts Tagged ‘NLRB’

Today the US Supreme Court found that the two member National Labor Relations Board did NOT have decision making authority over matters brought before them under the National Labor Relations Act.  The decision handed down in the matter of NEW PROCESS STEEL, L.P., PETITIONER v.NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD gave Big Labor it’s biggest set back since Reagan was in the White House.

Because of partisan bickering that has been going on since the Clinton administration, the five person National Labor Relations Board has struggled to maintain three permanent members and hasn’t even come close to having the full five member board as designed by the National Labor Relations Act.  Since the Obama administration has been in power, the NLRB has only had two members for the majority of the time.  During the first year of the new administration, over 600 decisions were handed down that reversed many NLRB rulings and administrative directives that were put in place during the Bush years.  As you might expect, these decisions were pro labor and anti business by a wide margin.

Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court seemed to nullify those decisions.  These cases will now have to be reviewed once again, once three or more members are on the board.  This increases an already growing case back log by a significant amount.  The end result will probably be much like the world of labor was during the Bush administration.  This decision will also empower the conservative, pro-business elements because they will now have to have a seat at the table if the Democrats and pro-labor folks ever want a decision to be made by the NLRB again.

Score one for business.

Today I am launching my new web site under the new company name of Greve Consulting, formerly known as Metreks.  The focus of my practice is to help companies develop their returns management, aka reverse logistics capabilities.  Viewers will find a lot of useful information on returns including the Reverse Logistics Podcast, which will feature industry leaders from the world of reverse logistics, and my blog which is packed with articles and information to help service providers, manufacturers, retailers, and liquidators make more money.

Register to get the blogs sent to your desktop automatically or save www.GreveConsulting.com as a favorite on your browser.  Your comments, questions, suggestions and feedback are encouraged.  I will use your feedback to improve the value delivered from the site.

Check in from time to time to see what is new.  For example, you might want to check out The Cost of Doing Nothing.  This is a form you can fill out to find out how much opportunity you and your company have in developing your reverse logistics capabilities.

Whether you call it returns management or reverse logistics, it’s all about improving returns and maximizing profits.  I hope you enjoy the new site and get a lot of value out of GreveConsulting.com.

Many business owners never hear of the National Labor Relations Board , until they get a letter notifying them that their employees have petitioned for a union election. So what is the NLRB? Simply put, the NLRB is an arm of the government that protects the rights of employees to either organize and join a union, remain union free, or decertify and effectively kick the union out. According to the NLRB Web Site:

The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers in the private sector. The statute guarantees the right of employees to organize and to bargain collectively with their employers, and to engage in other protected concerted activity with or without a union, or to refrain from all such activity.

However, if you sit in any NLRB office for a few minutes you will quickly realize that the NLRB is NOT unbiased.  In fact, they are very much PRO-UNION. As one official once told me, “We are in the business of making it easy to organize.” This bias comes as a surprise to many business people when they go to an NLRB hearing where a member of the NLRB sits as judge and jury on the issue of the day.

Employees too, can be surprised by the response of the NLRB. If employees want to organize, they will be rushed into an office and a friendly NLRB attorney will carefully walk them through the process. However, decerification is often met with cold response. They will answer your questions if you ask directly, but you have to ask. Employees must ask directly:

• What do I need to do to deceritify a union where I work?
• What forms must be completed to file for decertification?
• Will you give me a blank form and walk me through how to fill it out?
• Can I have extra copies of the form?
• What wording do I need to have on the “Decertification Petition”?

The answers the NLRB gives employees will be all they need to know to legally decertify the union.  You can follow the this link to find the NLRB office nearest you. You can call or visit the office nearest you to get more information. The NLRB is there to protect employees. Everyone has a right to seek and receive their help. Quoting the NLRB web site says:

Employees have the right to form, join, support or assist unions, also known as labor organizations, who may bargain collectively with the employer on the employees’ behalf seeking to modify wages or working conditions. Employees also have the right to engage in other protected concerted activities without a union seeking to improve their wages and other working conditions.

Employees also have the right to refrain from engaging in these activities or to seek removal of a union from the workplace.

President Barack Obama’s rival for the White House last fall will block the confirmation of one of his nominees for the National Labor Relations Board.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, criticized Craig Becker, Obama’s choice for one of the Democratic slots on the board, at a Wednesday, October 21, meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Although the panel approved Becker and two other NLRB nominees, 15-8, McCain said that he would place a “hold” on Becker, denying him and the others a vote by the full Senate.

Echoing objections from business organizations, McCain is wary of several articles that Becker has written on labor relations. McCain asserted that Becker, currently the associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, would try to circumvent labor law through NLRB rulings.

“This is probably the most controversial nominee that I’ve seen in a long time,” McCain said. “I will, and others will, put a hold on his nomination.”

The NLRB has been operating for nearly two years with only two members—one Republican and one Democrat. At full strength, it has five. With Obama in the White House, the board will have a Democratic majority.

The tenor of Becker’s articles has the business community worried that the NLRB political pendulum will swing more forcefully—this time toward unions—than it normally does when a new president takes office. The NLRB is an independent agency that governs relations between unions and employers.

McCain vented his frustration that Becker had not appeared before the committee. The chairman of the panel, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, however, said that typically hearings are conducted only for the NLRB chairman.

“The tradition has been for a long time that we do not have hearings on these nominees,” Harkin said. “At this transition point, I want to continue that tradition.”

The committee reins passed from Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, to Harkin several weeks ago following Kennedy’s death. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming and the ranking Republican on the committee, expressed reservations about Becker but voted with Harkin and the panel Democrats to approve all three NLRB nominees.

Harkin downplayed the need for a hearing, pointing out that Becker had answered 282 written questions from Republicans.

But that didn’t satisfy McCain. “There are a lot of questions about his answers to the questions,” he said.

McCain’s move was welcomed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The organization spearheaded an October 20 letter to the Senate Labor Committee opposing Becker’s nomination that also was signed by the Society for Human Resource Management and the HR Policy Association.

“Many of the positions taken in his writings are well outside the mainstream and would disrupt years of established precedent and the delicate balance in current labor law,” the letter states.

A chamber analysis of a 1993 Becker article for the University of Minnesota Law Review says that he “expresses the view that employers should have no role in union organizing campaigns and union representation elections.”

But worries about Becker go beyond his approach to labor law. Steven Law, chief legal officer and general counsel at the chamber, said there are questions about whether Becker played a role in the vote-buying scandal that drove former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office.

Law also said that Becker may have drafted Obama administration executive orders on organized labor while working at the SEIU.

“Senator McCain ensures that there will be a more substantive debate on this nominee than he received in the committee,” Law said. “We’ve got an Act II to play out next.”

An SEIU spokesman referred questions about Becker to the Senate labor committee Democratic staff.

Harkin defended Becker, a Yale Law School graduate and former UCLA law professor. He said that in his answers to committee questions Becker had pledged to “fairly and impartially decide cases based on the relevant facts and established law.”

“I am confident that he will approach his new position objectively and without bias,” Harkin said.

With a bill that would make it easier for workers to form unions stalled in the Senate, many observers say that it is possible for a Democratic-majority NLRB to implement changes that would benefit labor in organizing campaigns.

“They could achieve through decision-making a lot of the facets that the Employee Free Choice Act in its current form proposes,” said John Bowen, a partner at Ford & Harrison in Minneapolis.

But he cautioned that major policy changes made by the board would be ephemeral.

“You’d be flipping back and forth depending on who’s in the White House,” Bowen said.

—Mark Schoeff Jr.

President Obama has nominated two of the three open seats at the National Labor Relations Board, including a lawyer with prolific writings urging changing the law to favor unions. Filling the open Democrat seats, the President announced his intention to nominate Craig Becker, a Chicago attorney who serves as Associate General Counsel to both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO, and Mark Pearce, a union-side attorney with the Buffalo firm of Creighton, Pearce, Johnsen & Giroux.

Mr. Becker has written extensively over the years and, in a 1993 law review article, proposed virtually eliminating the employer role in union representation elections, which he views as “anomalous.” He writes: “So long as the law construes employers and unions as equals in union elections, industrial democracy will remain as much a legal fiction as liberty of contract.” Further, Mr. Becker believes many changes could be made without Congress having to change the statute, including:

Denying employers any role in NLRB proceedings that determine which group of employees the union would represent (”appropriate unit”);

Removing the election itself from the workplace and barring employers from placing observers at the polls;

Barring employers from being able to challenge election results based on objectionable conduct by the union or participate in unfair labor practice cases involving such union conduct;

Establishing a “body of new campaign rules” for employers that would seek to prevent an employer from “exploit[ing] its authority as employer to augment the impact of its speech.”

I was channel surfing Monday night and happened to catch a snippet of the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC as she was commenting on the Employee Free Choice Act.  There were three things that were abundantly clear about Rachel’s comments.  First, Rachel hasn’t read the Employee Free Choice Act.  She should, it takes all of ten minutes.  Second, she quoted a source in the NLRB that said EFCA does NOT get rid of the secret ballot.  Not sure what planet this guy was from but he hadn’t read EFCA either. By the way, if you ever talked to anyone from the NLRB you know they are the most PRO union department in the government. The NLRB’s mission is to make it easy to organize.

In case you missed it, EFCA clearly states it will eliminate private ballot elections when 50% +1 of employees sign a union card. It doesn’t matter if the employees realize what they were signing or what the impact a signed card could have on them. It doesn’t matter how the unions get a signed card. Employees could be intimidated or bullied into signing cards at home, on break or in the parking lot. EFCA doesn’t provide a means to ensure that signatures are not forged. One other small item; EFCA forces business to negotiate with unions within 120 days or it goes to a arbitrator who will set all terms. It doesn’t matter if the arbitrator knows anything about the business, the competition, the market or even the prevailing wage rate of the area. They would have the final word on all union contract terms. Who knows, you could have someone as well read as Rachel Maddow set the terms of a union agreement for your business.

Last but not least, Rachel clearly holds business people in contempt. Why?  Hard to say. Like most of the media these days, she loves to vilify all business leaders. When did all business owners and executives who work for big companies become evil incarnate? I know many of them and EVERYONE that I know are good people and really care about their people. Each executive, without exception, works amazingly long hours and they do their best to provide sustainable employment for as many people as they can, at a fair wage and with the best benefits they can afford.

Rachel should watch the commercials that air during her show and realize that these businesses will be impacted by EFCA, as well as others that don’t sponsor her show. I wonder what the executives of the companies that sponsor her show think about being vilified by her and the other MSNBC hosts who are clearly biased against them? If this were Rachel, she would say “Can you say hypocritical?”.

If you saw the report, she played a clip of Warren Buffet saying he was absolutely opposed to “Card Check” and that it would have a disastrous impact on the economy.  What did Rachel say?  Warren is just wrong.  So who will Congress listen to on this issue?  Rachel “I just read the teleprompter” Maddow or Warren Buffet? Let’ pray they listen to Warren.