How Long Will Forced-Dues Radicals Reign?

No Matter What Voters Say, Joe Biden Aims to Keep NLRB Extreme

 With former President Donald Trump leading in the polls as this National Right to Work Newsletter edition went to press at the beginning of July, employees and small business owners who have suffered under the tyranny of union-label President Joe Biden’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are hoping relief will come soon. 

But the self-styled “most pro-union President” ever can’t tolerate this possibility. 

That’s why he aims to quickly secure a U.S. Senate rubberstamp to keep Lauren McFerran, the rabidly anti-Right to Work chairman he elevated in 2021, on the Board for another five years. 

If Mr. Biden succeeds, pro-forced unionism radicals will likely remain in control of the Board until August 2026, no matter who wins the presidential election this November. 

But National Right to Work Committee staff members are working to rally opposition to Ms. McFerran. 

McFerran NLRB More Radical Than Obama Board 

In a letter to the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions, which held a hearing in June on the NLRB’s relentless assault on workers’ personal freedom of association during Ms. McFerran’s chairmanship, Committee President Mark Mix wrote: 

“On issue after issue, the McFerran NLRB has taken more radical positions than even the Obama-era NLRB, which was known for its highly partisan rulings.”

 Under Ms. McFerran, the NLRB “has made it harder for workers to say ‘no’ to unionization by limiting secret-ballot elections, overturning elections when workers reject unionization, and stymieing employee efforts to remove unions,” Mr. Mix continued. 

The most alarming decision yet for workers who wish to remain free of compulsory unionism was issued last summer in a case called Cemex. 

Ms. McFerran and two ex-union lawyers installed on the Board by Mr. Biden in 2021, with union-label Senate politicians’ help, ruled that union bosses can take power over workers without winning a secret-ballot election and without even the employer’s acquiescence. 

All they have to do is file “unfair labor practice” (ULP) charges against the employer and collect so-called union “authorization” cards from 50% plus one of employees. Such cards, which are routinely extracted from workers while union organizers are watching them, are a notoriously unreliable gauge of employee sentiment. 

Even unproven allegations of employer wrongdoing are enough for union bosses to take power without an election under Cemex, and the NLRB can override the results of an election union officials have already lost. 

“Cemex effectively says that unions don’t need to win elections in order to seize control over workers and begin forcing them to pay dues, or be fired, if they are employed in a non-Right to Work state,” said Committee Vice President Greg Mourad. 

“As long as union lawyers can come up with trumped-up charges, a union needs only to collect cards from workers. That is far easier for Big Labor than winning a secret-ballot vote, because workers who refuse to sign a card know they will face repeated personal confrontations with union militants.” 

Lauren McFerran Uses NLRB Power to Push Biden/Big Labor Legislative Priorities 

Big Labor politicians and union lobbyists have long sought legislatively to make “card check,” or “cards only,” the default method of union organizing, but have been unable to do so due to public resistance, much of it mobilized by the Committee. 

The so-called “PRO Act,” which Mr. Biden has repeatedly called on Congress to pass, contains a long wishlist of legislative revisions, including the expansion of “cards only” unionization, which Big Labor wants to implement. 

The PRO Act has failed to gain traction in Congress due to bipartisan opposition to the radical ways it hands new powers to union bosses. But the McFerran NLRB is working to circumvent the legislative process and implement core PRO Act provisions by bureaucratic fiat. 

The McFerran Board has also taken steps to hamstring worker-led efforts to decertify, or remove, existing unions. 

Just a few years ago, the Trump NLRB reformed its “blocking charge” policy so that unions could no longer halt decertifications by accusing employers of unfair labor practices. But the McFerran Board has initiated rulemaking to bring abusive blocking charges back. 

Under the policy Ms. McFerran is seeking to restore, even if union bosses’ allegations against an employer are never proven, or are demonstrably false, the election is still delayed while the NLRB investigates the charges. 

In numerous cases, this would result in union officials remaining in power even though they have provided no real evidence of employer wrongdoing, and even though independent-minded workers have gone to great lengths to secure a secret-ballot decertification vote. 

Nominee Faces Uncertain Future in the Senate 

The McFerran Board has held that an employee couldn’t be fired for yelling incendiary language over a bullhorn at a coworker because he did so during a union drive. It’s even ruled that a nurse had no right to see the secret agreement her employer signed with a union that she had been working to decertify. 

Fortunately, there’s hope the McFerran reappointment can be stopped, based on the trouble a couple of other radical Biden nominees have had. 

His stalled nominee for labor secretary, Julie Su, has been serving as “acting” secretary for over a year because she doesn’t have enough Senate votes to be confirmed. 

In 2022, Mr. Biden’s nominee to head the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, David Weil, was voted down by senators concerned about his radical pro-forced unionism stances. 

“There is a real chance that Lauren McFerran’s confirmation can be stopped,” said Mr. Mourad. 

“But Big Labor’s lobbyists are going to be out in full force trying to push this nominee across the finish line.

“There needs to be a corresponding push by grassroots voters against Ms. McFerran so that the same ‘fence-sitting’ senators who declined to advance other radical Biden nominees decide it’s best to let this one die on the vine.” 

The Committee is encouraging its supporters across the country to contact their senators and urge that they oppose confirmation. 

“Vulnerable senators like John Tester [D-Mont.] and Jacky Rosen [D-Nev.] who are up for reelection this year could decide they simply prefer not to vote on another one of President Biden’s radical, anti-worker labor-policy nominees,” said Mr. Mourad. 

“When their offices are swamped with postcards from Right to Work supporters opposing this nomination, they may decide not to comply with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s [D-N.Y.] demands that they help him move Ms. McFerran through the Senate.”

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This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.

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