CAP Conference Set to Explore Impending Labor Board Decision

by James Parks, Sep 20, 2006

By the end of this week or next week, we may know whether more than one-third of all registered nurses in the private sector in the country will lose their federal labor law protections. Or if nearly 400,000 computer systems analysts—more than one in four—will have to give up ever getting a union card.

The Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is set to soon decide a trio of cases known as the “Kentucky River” cases that could take away contract protections from hundreds of thousands of workers represented by unions and deny as many as 8 million workers their freedom to form unions by expanding the definition of supervisor. Under federal labor law, supervisors are barred from forming unions.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund is sponsoring a critical conference Friday, Sept. 22, to examine the possible impact of the Kentucky River cases and to develop strategies to counter the damage of a bad ruling.

The CAP conference will feature Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a leading advocate for workers’ rights, who authored a letter signed by more than 100 of her colleagues urging the NLRB to hold open hearings on the Kentucky River cases. The NLRB has refused to hear oral arguments on the cases—and has heard no oral arguments, a fundamental part of any due process, since the Bush administration took office.

Joining DeLauro in the discussion will be CAP Senior Vice President Cassandra Butts; Ross Eisenbrey, vice president and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI); Fred Feinstein, visiting professor and senior fellow in the Office of Executive Programs at the University of Maryland; Sarah Fox, a former member of the NLRB; and Cheryl Johnson, R.N., president of United American Nurses and a vice president of the AFL-CIO.

For more information on the conference, click here.

DeLauro says the Bush NLRB already has failed to do its job to protect employees’ freedom to form or join unions of their choice and to bargain collectively.

These were democratic principles at work, supposedly overseen by an impartial NLRB. Today, the system is broken and the NLRB is failing to protect employees.

During the week of July 10, hundreds of thousands of union members took to the streets in a week of action to demand that their employers not fire them for their union membership.

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