National Labor Relations Board gears up for massive power grab

Bureaucracy running amok. It seems to be a theme here at the Tatler today. Here’s what the Big Labor-dominated NLRB is up to.

Specifically, the Board has announced its intent to reconsider the standards that have governed for decades what constitutes an appropriate unit for purposes of union representation and collective bargaining. The Board, over a strident dissent by the lone Republican member, has done so in the context of adjudicating a single case, one in which no party requested such a sweeping review of existing law. The Board’s actions are questionable both as a matter of substantive policy and administrative procedure, and smack of an effort to achieve through agency fiat radical statutory changes Congress has declined to enact. …

Why is the determination of the appropriate unit significant? Generally, smaller units are favored by unions because they are easier and less expensive to organize; union agents can target small subsets of disgruntled employees within a broader workforce. Once a foothold is gained, union agents enjoy broader access rights and can seek to make incremental gains among other segments of employees, with the ultimate objective of securing representation of the entire facility, albeit in separate units. But a proliferation of small units fragments the workplace and has substantial negative consequences on the employer, the long-term interests of employees, and the collective bargaining process.