NLRB Speeds up Snap Election Rule, and They're Ready if the Republican Member Resigns in Protest

The Big Labor-heavy National Labor Relations Board announced Friday that it is moving up implementing its snap elections decision to Nov. 30. The rule would significantly slash the length of time it takes for unions to go from gathering support among workers to holding a vote on unionizing. The NLRB’s Democrat members moved the rule up so that it could be implemented by the end of the year, which is also the end of Craig Becker’s recess appointment to the board. Becker is the former SEIU lawyer recess appointed to the board by President Obama in March 2010. The Senate had rejected Becker, 52-43, and many groups including the US Chamber of Commerce strongly opposed him for being too much a tool of the unions. Coupled with the board’s moves on card check, which would destroy the secret ballot, and its “micro union” decision allowing partial unionization even among workforces where a majority oppose unionization, it’s not hard to see the agenda at work here: Ambush employers and employees to reintroduce Big Labor into an American workforce that has chosen to reject unions for decades. Add in the NLRB’s suit against Boeing, and you have a board that is also working to crush right to work laws nationwide. Simply put, the NLRB under Becker has become a weapon of Big Labor oppression, with the full backing of the president.

The board is supposed to adhere to fixed timelines any time a new rule is to be implemented, but in a “pass it to find out what’s in it” way of working, the Democratic members aren’t even allowing the Republican member adequate time to review the rule change. The board’s lone Republican member, Brian Hayes, has expressed his frustration with the board’s radical actions. If he resigned, the board would be denied a quorum, and some believe that such a move would prevent the snap elections rule from implementation.

I don’t think so. That would have been the case, but for a board ruling issued on Nov. 3. That order accounts for a lack of quorum, and would put sweeping power into the hands of the NRLB’s general counsel, Lafe Solomon. In the event that a quorum cannot be reached, Solomon would be empowered with

“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 the Democratic members of the board were evidently planning the Nov. 30 rule implementation weeks ago. They have set up a “heads we win, tails you lose” scenario. Hayes can vote against it, and whether Hayes resigns or not, they will push forward with the new rule anyway.

Update: More here.