Bombshell Doc: Obama's NLRB Gears Up to Operate Without Any GOP Members (Update: Romney Slams NLRB)

The National Labor Relations Board’s Democratic members think screwing up the US economy is funny, so they would very much like to continue doing it.

New documents obtained by Judicial Watch show acting National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Lafe Solomon joking that the NLRB’s suit against Boeing would kill jobs in South Carolina. Commenting on a Planet Labor article whose headline suggests Boeing might not be able to open its new plant in South Carolina because of “antiunion behavior,” Solomon writes:

The article gave me a new idea. You go to geneva and I get a job with airbus. We screwed up the us economy and now we can tackle europe.

Solomon goes on to complain that Obama NLRB nominee Craig Becker may be getting the credit for the Boeing suit: “I didn’t read all of the meltwater articles but some of the headlines tie boeing to craig. Unbelievable.”

Solomon’s colleague, outgoing NLRB Chairwoman Wlima Liebman, replies by soothing Soloman’s bruised ego. “None of the articles tie craig to boeing. Just mention his recess appointment. No one is raining on your parade,” Liebman wrote in reply.

That same hilarious general counsel, Lafe Solomon, is in the process of getting a great deal of NLRB power handed to him. The NLRB issued an order on Nov 3, 2011 that gives Solomon “full authority over court litigation matters that otherwise would require Board authorization and full authority to certify the results of any secret ballot election conducted under the National Emergency provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act…” The order comes into effect “during any time at which the Board has fewer than three Members and shall cease to be effective whenever the Board has at least three members.”

So what’s the point of this?

Well, in the wake of the NLRB’s unprecedented lawsuit against Boeing, there has been talk of the lone Republican on the board resigning to deny it a quorum. That would paralyze the NLRB, preventing it from additional power grabs for a while. The Nov. 3 order is a way around that. If Brian Hayes, the GOP NLRB member, resigns, then by the authority of this order Lafe Solomon effectively takes over and can certify union snap elections, continue suing American companies on behalf of Big Labor, and so forth. That is spelled out in the order’s supplementary information section:

The National Labor Relations Board anticipates that in the near future it may, for a temporary period, have fewer than three Members of its full complement of five Members.1 The Board also recognizes that it has a continuing responsibility to fulfill its statutory obligations in the most effective and efficient manner possible. To assure that the Agency will be able to meet its obligations to the public to the greatest extent possible, the Board has decided to temporarily delegate to the General Counsel full authority on all court litigation matters that would otherwise require Board authorization…

So if Hayes quits, the board’s Big Labor agenda rolls on in the hands of a man who jokes around about screwing up the US economy.

Update: Mitt Romney has issued a statement slamming the NLRB’s “disturbing and cavalier” attitude toward jobs.

“President Obama has allowed the National Labor Relations Board to run roughshod over America’s job creators. Recently released emails from NLRB officials, including General Counsel Lafe Solomon, reveal a disturbing and cavalier attitude about job losses that are a direct result of NLRB policies. If President Obama is serious about getting America back to work ‘right now,’ he should start by immediately dismissing Mr. Solomon and sending a message throughout his Administration that our country’s jobs crisis isn’t a laughing matter.”