Stephen, J. Cabot blog

April 9, 2010

THE NLRB POSES A THREAT TO CORPORATE AMERICA

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 5:26 pm

 THE NLRB POSES A THREAT TO CORPORATE AMERICA

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

 

It is no secret that a Democratic majority on the National Labor Relations Board would favor unions. If one of those is a former union lawyer who believes that the Employee Free Choice Act should become law, the putative impartiality of the NLRB could be abrogated with the stroke of a pen.

 

Craig Becker, who was appointed to the Board by President Obama during the spring recess of Congress (an action known as a presidential recess appointment), will decidedly and perhaps aggressively tilt the Board to an unfair and dangerous pro-union position.

 

Mr. Becker, who was a top lawyer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Democrat Mark Pearce, will give the Board a three-vote Democratic majority.  There had been just one Democrat and one Republican on the Board prior to the appointments of Becker and Pearce. The Board should have five members.

 

Many in Corporate America as well as students of labor relations and pro-management attorneys believe that the newly composed Board will act to affirm a pending petition that would require employers to bargain with unions that represent less than a majority number of any employer’s workers. In addition, it is also believed that the Board will vote to shorten the period of time from when an organizing petition is accepted by the Board and when a vote is held. While the Employee Free Choice Act may be doomed in Congress, the acts of the NLRB could now advance the mission of unions so that more and more workers become unionized and labor costs skyrocket. It is essential, therefore, that Corporate America invests in strategic action plans for union avoidance as well as plans to achieve decertification of unions already in place.

 

A dark cloud is hanging over Corporate America, and only if it implements a pro-active battle plan will the sun shine again on our traditional free enterprise system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 26, 2010

PRESIDENT OBAMA PLAYS THREE CARD MONTE WITH THE NLRB

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 4:04 pm

From the desk of Stephen Cabot

 

The National Labor Relations Board needs a quorum of three.  If President Obama hopes to enact his pro-union agenda, he will need to have another pro-union advocate on the NLRB. He won’t say who is the pro-union advocate; he won’t even say that there is a pro-union advocate.

 

But as the names are flipped from hand to hand, one name keeps turning up. And if you guessed Craig Becker, you would be right.

 

According to The Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com) “In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article [Becker] said that the ‘core defect in union election law…is the employer’s status as a party to labor representation proceedings’ and that ‘employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees’ election of representatives.’”

 

If an NLRB member believes that employers should not be permitted to educate their employees about he disadvantages of unionization, he can hardly be considered a fair minded adjudicator of labor issues.

 

Yet, according to Senator Tom Harkin, President Obama will appoint Craig Becker to the NLRB during the Easter recess. It’s called a recess appointment, and it’s an end run around the Senate.  No votes are required.

 

With his pro-union advocates on the NLRB, President Obama will have won his three card Monte game, for no matter which member Corporate America appeals to, the results will always favor the union.

 

January 15, 2010

RESPECT FOR WHOM?

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 4:56 pm

In the current political climate, Corporate America (to borrow a phrase from Rodney Dangerfield) “gets no respect.” Unions are rallying again for what they cleverly call RESPECT for supervisory personnel. At issue is the Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradeworkers (RESPECT), which had originally been introduced in 2007 by Senator Dodd, but which may be taken up by a new congress.

 

The National Labor Relations Act defines a supervisor as an employee with the authority to “hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or to responsibly direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action.” In other words, supervisors are part of a company’s management, and management cannot be organized by unions. To do so would create divided loyalties.

 

The Respect Act would eliminate the responsibility of supervisors from assigning and responsibly directing non-supervisory personnel. The effect would be that all supervisors would become like all other employees and be eligible to join unions. The ensuing value to union coffers is estimated to be in the many millions of dollars. In this Alice in Wonderland world proposed by unions to the NLRB, there would be no line separating supervisors from workers. Where would the allegiance of supervisors be if they are on the picket lines, cheek by jowl, with those they had once supervised? And should card checks become law, one can easily imagine supervisors pressuring employees to sign those cards! In such a situation, it would be impossible for supervisors to carry out the goals of management.

 

This proposed Act is obviously no respecter of logic or common sense. It is, instead, part of our brave new world where union leaders not only frequently visit the White House whose occupant’s political campaign enjoyed the benefits of tens of millions of dollars raised by unions, but where unions are visiting upon the country an ongoing assault on economic well being and growth. Corporate America does – indeed – get no respect.

 

 

 

December 11, 2009

ORGANIZED LABOR’S CIVIL WAR

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 5:50 pm

One of the most aggressive unions in the country, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will now face a challenge to its dominant role representing healthcare workers in California. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has called for an election to determine if SEIU or the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) will represent 2,300 Kaiser healthcare workers in California.

 

The decision of the NLRB came as a blow to SEIU in its ongoing battle with the breakaway healthcare union, NUHW. SEIU had hoped to stop NUHW’s ongoing march to win the allegiance of thousands of healthcare workers in a wide array of states. As part of its PR war, the two sides have exchanged charges of various acts of wrong doing, including financial mismanagement. Perhaps the most hilarious charge leveled by the unions is union-busting. It’s usually the paladins of Corporate America who are accused of being union busters. If the labor movement has ever evidenced its true agenda, the bitter battle between these two unions indicates that power and money are as important to unions as they are to other institutions.

Determined to preserve its power, the SEIU says it will appeal the NLRB decision. If, however, the SEIU appeal fails, balloting is expected to take place in January.

The fight between SEIU and NUHW amounts to a civil war within the labor movement. The unintended victor will be Corporate America, and the millions of workers who will regard unionization with a richly deserved sense of skepticism, if not disgust.  



October 23, 2009

SENATOR McCAIN TAKES A STAND

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 5:26 pm

 

As we reported last week, President Obama continues to pack the NLRB with pro-union advocates. We cited the recent example of Craig Becker, a union lawyer, as well as numerous others. Now Senator John McCain has announced on the floor of the Senate that he will block Mr. Becker’s appointment to the NLRB.

 

Senator McCain has reiterated what we have claimed that Mr. Becker will support unions at the expense of Corporate America and will likely curtail its free speech.  Mr. Becker’s articles indicate that he would restrict the rights of employers to present pro-management arguments to their employees during union organizing drives. As an associate general counsel for the Service Employees Union, one of the most aggressive unions in the country, Mr. Becker has been a dedicated advocate of the union’s agenda.

 

In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, Mr. Becker argued that “employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees’ election of representatives. Employers should have no right to raise questions concerning voter eligibility or campaign conduct. 

“Because employers lack the formal status either of candidates vying to represent employees or of voters, they should not be entitled to charge that unions disobeyed the rules governing voter eligibility or campaign conduct.”

 

Such arguments obviously favor unions over corporations; yet, the NLRB should be an unbiased, objective body that rules on existing laws and regulations. 

 

We agree with the point of view expressed in a letter that Jay Timmons, Executive Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers, sent to Senator Tom Harkin. To wit: “Mr. Becker has espoused extreme positions far outside mainstream thought on how our nation’s labor laws should be interpreted.”

It is imperative that the senate votes to maintain the integrity of the NLRB by maintaining a level playing field for both management and workers. We believe that is what Senator McCain is attempting to accomplish, and we applaud his effort.

May 15, 2009

Bad News for Corporate America

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 3:48 pm

Have you heard of Craig Becker? He is a recently named appointment of President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). While awaiting senate confirmation to take his new position, Mr. Becker is serving as Associate General Counsel for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is run by one of the most aggressive union leaders in North America, Andy Stern.

 

Mr. Becker, like most members of organized labor, is not an advocate of secret ballot elections. While Corporate America has been gritting its teeth awaiting the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), it may have even more to worry about. Craig Becker wrote that employers should be not be permitted to attend NLRB elections and should not be permitted to challenge election results. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Craig wrote that “Employers should also be barred from ‘placing observers at the polls to challenge ballots.’ ”

 

The editorial continued: “Mr. Becker advocated a new ‘body of campaign rules’ that would severely limit the ability of employers to argue against unionization. He argued that any meeting a company holds that involves a ‘captive audience’ ought to be grounds for overturning an election. If a company wants to distribute leaflets that oppose the union, for example, Mr. Becker said it must allow union access to its private property to do the same.”

 

With its majority in both houses of Congress, the Democrats will no doubt confirm Mr. Becker as a member of the NLRB. No one likes to play cards with a dealer using a stacked deck; and under the Obama selected NLRB, the deck will be decidedly stacked against Corporate America. And that’s bad for economy, bad for America, and bad news for democratic traditions.