Reid Blasts Republican Intimidation Tactics Against NLRB in Boeing Case
“Disgraceful and dangerous” is how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today described attempts by Republican senators and state attorneys general to intimidate the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They are demanding the NLRB drop its complaint against the Boeing Co.
In April, the nonpartisan, independent NLRB issued a complaint against Boeing for moving a planned production line for its 787 Dreamliner from its unionized Puget Sound, Wash., plant to a nonunion facility in South Carolina. The complaint says the move was in retaliation against the Puget Sound workers for having previously exercised their federally guaranteed right to strike against Boeing and to prevent these workers from striking in the future.
In a videotaped interview with The Seattle Times, a senior Boeing executive said “the overriding factor” in the company’s decision to move the line wasn’t “the business climate. And it wasn’t the wages we’re paying today.” It was, he said, to avoid strikes. That is illegal. (For more information, check the NLRB’s fact sheet on the complaint against Boeing.)
Republicans Cry ‘Thug’ Over NLRB Action in Boeing Move
There was a time when Republicans claimed the “law and order” mantle was theirs and theirs alone.
But Republican senators’ recent cries of outrage against the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) issuance of a complaint against the Boeing Co. for trying to skirt federal labor law show they’re all for law and order as long as it’s not labor law.
With charges from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and others that the NLRB is acting like “thugs” from a “third world country” and is bullying poor little old Boeing, you’d think the labor agency was taking rubber hoses to some poor schoolyard weakling.
Here’s the case in a nutshell. In April, the NLRB issued a complaint against Boeing for moving a planned production line for its 787 Dreamliner from its unionized Puget Sound, Washington plant to a non-union facility in South Carolina. The complaint alleges that the move was in retaliation against the Puget Sound workers for having previously exercised their federally-guaranteed right to strike against Boeing and to prevent these workers from striking in the future. Read the rest of this entry »
DeMint Wants to Ban All Collective Bargaining for Federal Employees
This is a cross-post from Think Progress. The reporter is Scott Keyes.
The defining political story three months into 2011 is the spread of anti-union legislation in the states. Now, a leading senator on the right wants to eliminate collective bargaining rights at a federal level.
During an interview with Think Progress in Des Moines this weekend, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a leader of the tea party movement and veritable kingmaker for conservative candidates, made no bones about his desire to diminish the power of public employees.
DeMint told Think Progress that he “doesn’t believe collective bargaining has any place in government…including at the federal level.” The South Carolina senator then went on to call public employees’ unions an “unelected third party” that enjoyed “monopoly power” in negotiations. “It just doesn’t make any sense,” DeMint quipped:
KEYES: Senator, would you like to see some of these bills that we see at a state level curbing the collective bargaining rights of public employees’ unions, would you like to see those on a federal level?
DeMINT: I don’t believe collective bargaining has any place in government.
Trumka: Boost Fairness and Revenue with Estate Tax Reinstatement
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and hundreds of other multimillionaires (and some billionaires, like Steinbrenner) who have passed away this year disproved the old adage, “the only two things certain in life are death and taxes.”
They couldn’t dodge death, but their estates have dodged taxes—some $14.8 billion so far this year, according to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). The federal estate tax that in the past applied to multimillion-dollar fortunes fully expired at the end of 2009, after President George W. Bush’s 2001 $1.35 trillion tax cut package for the wealthy exempted larger and larger estates from the levy each year.
Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, philanthropist and Walt Disney heir Abigail Disney and others called for a reinstatement of the tax. Read the rest of this entry »
DeMint: If TSA Workers Join Union, They’ll Let Terrorists In
After the now infamous Christmas day “crotch bomber” episode on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) couldn’t keep his anti-union bile from bubbling out of his mouth.
DeMint, who has single-handedly bottled up the nomination of Erroll Southers to head the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), screeched that if TSA workers were allowed to unionize, terrorists clothed in plastic explosive-laden underwear or shoes or ball caps would begin blasting airplanes out of the sky on a regular basis.
BTW, the Obama administration supports the radical idea that TSA workers should be allowed to choose whether to join a union. Workers should have the choice, not officious senators.
Workers Mobilizing to Get Bargaining Rights for Transportation Security Officers
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More than 120 workers from nine unions braved cold weather in Phoenix yesterday to rally and show solidarity with Transportation Security Agency (TSA) workers who are seeking a union.
The Phoenix rally shows workers across the country are standing strongly behind the employees who protect the flying public. Over the next few weeks, the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions are mobilizing to draw attention to the plight of these workers and the unfair ways they are being treated.
Even though federal border guards, immigration and customs and Federal Protective Service employees are already union members, TSA employees still do not have collective bargaining rights.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler stopped by National Airport near Washington, D.C., yesterday to talk with TSA workers about their concerns. Workers there and at airports across the country are concerned about pay levels, high staff attrition, low morale and severe rates of workplace injuries.
Employee Free Choice Web Roundup
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One way to celebrate May Day is to catch up on recent coverage of the Employee Free Choice Act, so here’s a roundup of news, resources and blog posts from the week about the fight to ensure workers have the freedom to form unions without harassment and intimidation from managers.
* In the Huffington Post, the AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff looks at Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s decision to leave the Republican Party and says the union movement will be “watching closely” to see how Specter votes on issues critical to working people. Acuff says the Specter switch is a step in the right direction for the Employee Free Choice Act:
Arlen Specter’s decision to become a Democrat makes the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act much more fluid and passage much more likely.
The labor movement will re-double our already overwhelming efforts in Pennsylvania to convince the Senator to once again support the bill that he was a co-sponsor of.
Beware of the Big Lie Bill
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Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress made their Big Lie into a bill Wednesday, when Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) introduced the so-called Secret Ballot Protection Act.
Before we go further, let’s clear up the bill’s false implication right now:
The Employee Free Choice Act would not—repeat after me—would not, take away the secret ballot National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process if workers seeking to form a union wanted to use it. The Employee Free Choice would ensure workers made the decision of whether to select a union via majority sign-up (card-check) or via ballot process. Choice is good. That’s one reason why we called it Employee Free Choice—because it would enable employees, not management, to make the decision of how to form a union.
The alleged goal of S. 478 is to:
amend the National Labor Relations Act to ensure the right of employees to a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.
Barnacles of Class War Around Our Necks
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For more proof that the Republican opposition to the auto bridge loan is ideologically based class war against workers and their unions, look no further than yesterday’s comments by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who wants to force the American auto industry—at the cost of 3 million to 5 million U.S. jobs—to its knees:
I’m not trying to get rid of the unions but I am saying that they appear to be an antiquated concept in today’s economy and if a company cannot be competitive with the union structure that they have then we need to recognize that.
…Most of this is being done to protect unions. It’s not to protect the workers. What I want to do is make sure we have jobs for these workers and we have first-class American auto companies and we’re not going to do that with the barnacles of unionism wrapped around their necks.
