Rep. Miller Asks Justice Dept. for Investigation of Possible Coercion of NLRB Member
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, asked the Department of Justice to look into evidence uncovered by a National Labor Relations Board Inspector General investigation that found board member Brian Hayes engaged in employment discussions with a law firm with business before the agency. Miller wrote:
The board plays a critical role in adjudicating and administering the rights of employees and employers under our nation’s labor law and Board members must be free of coercion and undue influence when executing their responsibilities.
The NLRB Inspector General investigation found that Hayes and an attorney with Morgan Lewis had a number of conversations beginning in late September or early October about potential employment if he were to resign his position on the NLRB. As part of those conversations, an attorney with the firm, according to Hayes, stated that “if you ever decide to resign we’d like to talk to you.”
More here.
House Republicans Pass Bill to Cut Workers’ Rights
The House this evening passed (235-188) legislation (H.R. 3094) that gives employers new tools to combat and delay elections by workers who try to form unions. Dubbed the Election Prevention Act by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the bill is the congressional Republican effort to block some modest rule changes proposed earlier this year by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to reduce unnecessary litigation and modernize the way union elections are conducted.
Miller says the bill’s “singular goal is to delay”
and ultimately prevent union representation elections. Its aim is to deny workers the opportunity for a voice at work.
House Republican leaders claim the legislation is part of their jobs creation agenda, although they’ve never been able to explain how trampling workers’ rights to fair elections creates jobs. It’s actually part of an overall attack on workers’ rights, the NLRB and essential workplace safety and health and environmental rules. Click here for more. Read the rest of this entry »
Attacks on NLRB Cut Into Heart of Middle Class
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The unprecedented Republican and corporate attacks on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are a direct attack on workers’ rights and an effort to put the nation’s labor laws “into cold storage,” Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) said during a special AFL-CIO forum today examining the assault on the NLRB and workers’ rights.
This is the right wing on steroids….They went to work immediately after the 2010 elections—not on jobs—but on taking rights away from American workers.
Since January, said Kimberly Freeman Brown, executive director of American Rights at Work, congressional Republicans have made nearly 50 separate assaults on the NLRB, from bills to gut its power and funding to hearings and subpoenas.
In fact later today, the House will vote on a bill that would deny workers the right to fair union elections by blocking the modest changes proposed by the NLRB earlier this year in the way union elections are conducted. As AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler told the audience: Read the rest of this entry »
Special Forum Nov. 30 Examines Attacks on NLRB, Workers’ Rights
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—the key agency in ensuring workers’ rights—is facing an unprecedented assault from partisan politicians and the 1 percent.
On Wednesday from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m, panelists at a special forum at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., will look at how workers can challenge the attacks and highlight how this ongoing assault against the NLRB fits into the larger corporate-backed political agenda to degrade workers’ rights on the job, attack collective bargaining and gut middle-class jobs.
Tell Congress Your Job Loss Story
Obstructionists in Congress are blocking progress on efforts to put America back to work. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif), the ranking member on the House Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, needs your help to stop the political games and pass legislation that addresses the nation’s top priority: creating good jobs.
Miller is sponsoring a fact-finding forum and gathering stories to help Congress understand what life is really like for people struggling with the jobs crisis. You and your friends can help by submitting your stories. To tell Congress your story, click here.
After you submit your story to Congress, please take a quick moment to paste it into the body of an e-mail and send it to us at peoplepower@aflcio.org.
Poll after poll shows the main issue on the public’s mind is jobs. Miller and many Democratic lawmakers know that, but much of Washington is focused on the deficit. Help Miller demonstrate what’s on the minds of millions of Americans: the jobs crisis.
Republican NLRB Bill Guts Workers’ Rights, Shields Boeing, Other Corporations
House Republicans have turned a routine complaint by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Boeing into a “political and ideological circus,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
He says a Republican bill introduced after the NLRB’s complaint, which accuses the aviation giant of retaliating against workers for exercising their legal rights,
is sweeping legislation that would gut the National Labor Relations Act and result in serious harmful changes to jobs and workers’ rights throughout the country.
Trumka, Pat Bertucci, a Machinists (IAM) member and third generation Boeing worker, and University of Texas law professor Jack Getman took part in a telephone press conference today to set the record straight on the Republican House bill (H.R. 2587) that would cripple the NLRB’s ability to protect workers.
Top Lawmakers Say Proposed NLRB Election Rule Ensures ‘Greater Fairness’
Workers deserve a “fair, clear system for protecting their rights and making themselves heard in union elections,” four top Democratic lawmakers said in a letter to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) strongly supporting the board’s proposed changes in the way elections to form unions are conducted.
Noting that the current election procedures are “outdated and contain unnecessary delays…that run anywhere from three and a half years to 13 years,” the lawmakers say:
The longer an election is delayed, the more likely it is that workers will face harassment and unlawful retaliation for exercising their rights….In today’s workplace one in five workers who exercise the right to organize is illegally fired. In that environment, workers stop trying to organize, leading to a country where tens of millions of Americans who want a union do not have one.
The four are Read the rest of this entry »
Republican NLRB Bill Is ‘Outsourcers’ Bill of Rights
Machinists (IAM) member Patrick Bertucci is a shop steward at Boeing’s Renton, Wash., plant where he works on wing assembly for the Boeing 737. Today he spoke to a packed Capitol Hill press conference about a House Republican bill designed to cripple the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) ability to protect workers:
When I go to work every day, I am held accountable to build the best and safest aircraft in the world. The Boeing Co. needs to be held accountable for their actions as well…I want the Boeing to be successful. But no company can succeed when they break the law.
The legislation, which Republicans rammed through the committee last week without a hearing, is set for a full house vote Thursday. Its target is the NLRB’s recent decision to file a complaint against the Boeing Co. The NLRB charges that Boeing moved production away from its Washington State facility in retaliation for the workers exercising their right to strike, and that’s against the law.
Proposed NLRB Rule Change Draws Wide Support
The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) modest, common-sense proposed rule to remove roadblocks for workers who want to vote on whether to form a union has drawn praise from working men and women, political leaders and activists around the country. Here’s a sample of the comments:
Electrical Workers (IBEW) President Edwin Hill:
By eliminating delays, the board is not only bringing some balance. It is also saving money for taxpayers who foot the bill because of unnecessary litigation.
Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen:
Workers at T-Mobile USA and nearly every other company know firsthand how U.S. corporations use delay to keep workers from making a fair choice about union representation. The changes proposed by the National Labor Relations Board are a first and modest step toward ending some of that delay.
S.C. Workers Say Boeing Should Not Break Law to Move Jobs There
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In advance of a politically motivated hearing, South Carolina working men and women called today on lawmakers to focus on creating good jobs instead of mounting a political three-ring circus in defense of Boeing lobbyists and CEOs.
The workers spoke prior to a field hearing in North Charleston, S.C., organized by House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and attended by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and several Republican members of Congress.
In April, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint alleging that Boeing’s 2009 decision to locate a Dreamliner 787 final assembly line in North Charleston represented illegal retaliation against Machinists (IAM) members who work for the company. The NLRB is seeking a court order requiring Boeing to operate the second 787 line, including supply lines, with union workers in the Puget Sound. To learn more and check out the real deal on the NLRB and Boeing, click here and here.
