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Trumka: No Deal on NLRB Nominees
President Obama must act immediately to restore the ability of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to protect the rights of American workers by giving recess appointments to two nominees who are being blocked by Senate Republican obstructionists, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today.
Writing on Huffington Post, Trumka put it this way:
The NLRB’s job is to protect workers’ rights—but for more than two years it has been functioning with only two members instead of the five it should have. Working people need an NLRB that can enforce the National Labor Relations Act—not one hobbled by vacancies.
Click here to read the entire post.
Saying “enough is enough,” Trumka is urging working people to take action now and call the White House switchboard at 202-456-1111or 202-456-1414 and demand that President Obama use his executive power to appoint Craig Becker and Mark Pearce to the NLRB during the Presidents Day recess.
In a deal between the White House and the Senate minority, the Senate yesterday confirmed 27 non-controversial Obama appointees. But the NLRB nominees—Becker and Pearce—both highly qualified, well-respected labor lawyers who were nominated in July, were left out of the deal. The Republicans filibustered the Becker nomination, although he received a majority vote. The White House apparently has agreed not to make Presidents Day recess appointments—a process that allows the president to temporarily appoint his own nominee while Congress is out of session.
Trumka calls that decision:
A big win for the Republicans. A big win for corporations that want to file down the teeth of the NLRB. A big loss for working people.
He adds that progressives must act quickly to build support for a fully functional NLRB.
Progressives should take every opportunity to let their congressional representatives and the White House know that protection of workers’ rights is one of the first and most important changes working people expected to see when they voted in 2008. It’s been 13 months since the inauguration—it’s time.
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10 Comments
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I think most of us realize that the Republican party is contolled by lobbyists for large corporations. It is my opinion that an organized withdrawal of retirement money from mutual funds would be the best way to get their attention.
I agree. Investing retirement funds in Wall Street creates a conflict of interest for unions. I’ve never heard of any unions using their funds to leverage favorable labor policies from corporations. Does it happen?
the unions wanted obama, now they have him. obama is a loser. obama is using the unions, just like the unions are using obama
you are 110 percent correct. the people of america need jobs, not bs
Do you always talk and agree with yourself?
This just shows how delusional we are about the possibility of labor law reform. If we can’t even get a labor nominee on the NLRB, which does little anyway to protect the rights of workers, then how did we even think we could get labor law reform. We really need to examine our legislative strategies because they currently don’t work. If we can’t mobilize a general strike, and win public support, then we are definitely not going to win labor law reform.
I admit that I grudgingly supported Obama once it was clear that the alternative was either a republican-leaning half Black guy or the “democrats” were going to put forth Hillary, who ran a base campaign which shamelessly appealed to the racism which obviously still pervades the American working class. I was excited to get our first Black president, but all we got was the darkest white president ever. Sarte — I feel you – but general strikes only occur when there is obviously no alternative. We must take the first steps now. For a baby to learn to walk, it must first crawl. The AFL-CIO is not a baby – it is a tired, overweight, diabetic, lazy, besotted,depressed middle aged fart used to doing things the way they were done in the 50′s. Itty -bitty steps are needed yesterday– like a national march on DC. That is how we ‘lobbied’ Congress during Vietnam – a million of us at a time.
As an individual, I am powerless to influence any ‘representive’ in Congress, because as a worker, I have no representation at all, unless and until we find the balls to organize a Labor Party, like they have in countries where unions still actually put up a fight and not a dog and pony show.
If I could influence any of them, I WOULD CALL THEM ALL 1,000 TIMES AND TELL THEM TO JUMP OFF A BRIDGE.
Sarte – When we reallly, really have a generel strike, and not a pretend one, it will be the time for fighting in the streets, and there will be a winner, and a loser. Either we will end up being destroyed, or we will arrest all of the superrich and confiscate all of their stolen wealth in order to save our country.
Prez Status Quobama does not care about working people. He’s an elititist that thinks that some people are better than other people if they are lucky enough to have BIG MONEY! Us working people are unlikely to ever attain that status because we’re too busy making a living and loving our families to devote that time and effort to be rich because when we come home from work we have to take a shower and go to bed early so we can sustain the amount of effort it takes to earn our paychecks. White collar corporate ass-suckers have more time to be political and left over energy to apply thier talents to politicians to massage thier common elitism that they know better about how things work and starving us workers is only “collateral damage” towards thier ultimate goal of total fascist corporatism. Until thier jobs get outsourced to India and China and they join our ranks of the unemployed. Truely, no one is better than anybody, unless you can figure out a way not to die.
obama will cause the destruction of america. he has been in office for over 1 year and has not accomplished one thing. are the unions blind to this
mr. obama just doesn’t understand no matter what the republicans say he can do what he wants for labor and the working class. recess appointments have been done by every president and if obama doesn’t labor he will next election when he becomes a one term president.what does it take to get those chicago advisors to help him do what labor needs and get off the can and stand up and take action