Bombshell Doc: Obama’s NLRB Gears Up to Operate Without Any GOP Members (Update: Romney Slams NLRB)
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.”
How wouldn’t this run afoul of the Supreme Court’s decision in New Process Steel v. NLRB?
Wesley Mouch anyone?
Regards
Rich in KCK
I had the same thought. Life is imitating art?
As Glenn at Instapundit has said many times–Ayn Rand meant Atlas Shrugged as a cautionary tale; the Left uses it as a how-to.
“Lafe Solomon joking that the NLRB’s suit against Boeing would kill jobs in South Carolina”
Why am I not laughing?
The action taken November 3, 2011 by NLRB deliberately subverts checks and balances on power and are dangerous, frightening and telling. The action give Lafe Solomon unilateral power over many American’s lives with no checks, no balances and no accountability.. exactly the way government worked in the USSR and now operates in Venezuela.
Collectivism is always implemented by the few, for the few at the cost of the freedom, and eventually even lives, of the many.
I’m not so sure he meant the “we screwed up the US economy” as a joke.
Why are there only three members on the five member board?
Oh good. An Enabling Act (pace Godwin). What could possibly go wrong?
joke? there is no joke intended or accidental
its just you GOPers paranoid over your rich friends losing some millions.
Your answer reads as a parody.
Do you think all of those Boeing line workers would see it the same way. Yes or no?
Maybe we should shut down all the auto factories in the South too; after all, the unions in (primarily) Detroit did such a fabulous job.
Right Nick. Tell that to the “millionaire” Boeing employees from SC who may be out of a job thanks to the NLRB.
Answer a question for me Nick. Republicans are said to be the party of the rich, as you state, yet we’re also caricatured as knuckle dragging rednecks with little education. Which is it? I don’t see how it can be both. Oh, wait. I forgot that cognitive dissonance is a pre-requsite for a liberal.
Yet another “we will use the rules to negate the law” moment, brought to you by lawyer Obama and the Obots.
Just another example of the Hope&Change! that you voted for.
What is frightening about this, truly frightening, is the amount of power over the American economy that resides in these regulatory agencies just waiting for the right administration to come along and begin to use it ruthlessly to advance a radical agenda. We see it again and again under this president, and it could get worse if he is re-elected with a Republican Congress, which now looks like a possibility. I hope Congress will look at moves like this and those in the EPA and elsewhere before they hatch yet another regulatory scheme.
I know I’m not really up on this stuff because it all strikes me as so simple. Obviously I’m missing something. Doesn’t the House of Representatives control the purse strings of our government? If a rogue agency started roaming the streets rounding up only working people do you think you could motivate the Republicans to cut their funding for that action? I know the answer and it makes me sad to think we are led by such spineless idiots. Better to let the workers in South Carolina swing in the wind so they can gather more press about it than actually do their jobs today. Sad.