Mr. President, Follow the Law

Mr. President, Follow the Law

The Washington Times takes the president and the NLRB to task for ignoring a recent appeals court decision invalidating the president's appointments to the board: When the Constitution puts a limitation on executive authority, the president can’t just ignore it for the sake of convenience. That message was delivered forcefully on Friday in a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. A unanimous three-judge panel declared unlawful President Obama’s installation of three appointees to the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was in session. The president is compounding his disregard for the Constitution by thumbing his nose at this well-reasoned decision. The nation’s founding document grants the president authority to “fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate.” The appellate panel’s ruling points out the use of “the Recess” as opposed to “a recess” or “an adjournment” was not accidental. The term refers to the long break between congressional sessions in which it makes sense for the president to make an interim appointment because the Senate is not available to provide its advice and consent. In his ruling, Chief Judge David B. Sentelle refused to accept novel interpretations meant to expand the appointment authority, saying, “We will not do violence to the Constitution by ignoring the Framers’ choice of words.” Desperate to stack the National Labor Relations Board with Big Labor cronies, the White House refused to allow an old piece of parchment get in the way. On Jan. 4, 2012, Mr. Obama made the appointments even though the Senate was conducting “pro forma” business and the House of Representatives purposely chose to remain in session to thwart the potential recess appointments. Administration lawyers argued before the court that the president, not Congress, had the ultimate power to decide when the Congress was in session. Under this interpretation, Senate participation in the nomination process would be converted from a check and balance on the executive to an empty formality.
NLRB Tips Scales of Justice

NLRB Tips Scales of Justice

A new congressional report has determined that the National Labor Relations Board has abandoned its role as an impartial arbitrator and has become an aggressive advocate for big labor: The National Labor Relations Board -- the federal agency tasked with protecting employees from unfair management or union practices -- has become a biased advocate for big labor, according to a newly released congressional report. The blunt assessment was offered in a staff report released Thursday by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform. "The NLRB is supposed to be a fair and neutral arbitrator. It's supposed to have a firewall between the judges, if you will, and representatives, as a plaintiff," Issa told Fox News. "Just the opposite is the case." The NLRB is designed much like an appeals court. The general counsel serves in a prosecutor-like role, and the five-member board acts as the jury. As in a court of law, rules forbid the two from communicating about pending cases. But NLRB emails turned over to the committee under force of subpoena reveal many such  ex-parte communications, some of them dealing with the challenge to Boeing's decision to build a non-union assembly plant in South Carolina to augment production of the highly sought-after 787 Dreamliner. In one email obtained by the committee, the associate general counsel of the NLRB, Barry Kearney, praised a union press release about the Boeing case, stating, "hooray for the red, white, and blue." In another email, reacting to Boeing's intention to fight the complaint, an NLRB attorney wrote
Prosecutor: SEIU Committed Voter Fraud

Prosecutor: SEIU Committed Voter Fraud

A prosecutor in Wisconsin says that the SEIU committed voter fraud in the 2011 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, the Daily Caller reports: Prosecutors believe a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organizer fraudulently voted in a 2011 election in Wisconsin, according to documents provided to the Daily Caller by the Wisconsin-based government watchdog group Media Trackers. An investigation by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office has led to a subpoena of SEIU’sWashington,D.C.headquarters and has implicated the prominent labor union in a voter fraud case that threatens to lead to criminal prosecution. Then-SEIU Senior Organizer-in-Training Clarence S. Haynes,
Meet Big Labor's New Enemy -- Their Own Members

Meet Big Labor's New Enemy -- Their Own Members

Deep in the heart of big labor country, Crain's Chicago Business reports of the battle going on between big labor and their members.  With help from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, these union members have found support in exercising their rights: Multinational corporations have a new ally in their battles with organized labor: unionized workers. As organized labor loses leverage in a race-to-the-bottom global market, some workers are becoming so disillusioned by what their unions can, or rather can't, do for them that they want out. The disaffected include dozens of machinists at Caterpillar Inc.'s plant in Joliet who crossed the picket line during a strike last summer and are planning unfair labor practices complaints against the union. Organized labor's slippage is most acute in the manufacturing sector, which has lost 4.7 million jobs and seen membership shrink by almost a third since 2001, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, private-sector union membership stands at just 6.9 percent nationally and 10.6 percent in Illinois. “Unions lack sufficient power to get their way,” says Mike Zimmer, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago. “It is a period of concession bargaining.” Many rank-and-file employees have opposed unions all along, of course. Despite organizing drives, workers have turned down collective bargaining at automobile plants across the South. Legislatures in 23 states have enacted “right-to-work” laws that allow employees to opt out of dues-paying membership at union shops; Indiana joined this camp early this year. Now some workers in union-friendly states are turning on their brethren over strikes. In Kansas City, Mo., a Honeywell Inc. employee filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board this year against an International Association of Machinists local for imposing a $7,361.36 fine for working during a strike, according to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an organization backed by businesspeople and individuals who oppose labor contracts mandating membership. In Los Angeles, three employees at a Boeing Co. plant brought complaints against the United Auto Workers in 2010 after it tried to discipline them for refusing to give up their jobs during a strike. The three claimed to have resigned from the union before the walkout. Similar charges have been filed and settled in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey and Connecticut, with unions including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Steelworkers of America named in complaints. In Illinois, the latest intra-union conflict—and potentially the biggest yet—is in Joliet. Last May, after contract negotiations stalled, nearly 800 IAM-represented employees walked off the job at Caterpillar's hydraulic-parts factory. After a few weeks, more than 100 returned to work, fed up over the lack of progress in the talks and pinched by the union's $150-a-week strike pay, some workers say.