Blog
Yesterday, the Third Circuit invalidated yet another one of President Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB. As you may remember, the D.C. Circuit, in its Noel Canning v. NLRB decision, sided with the U.S. Chamber’s lawyers and held that the President’s appointments of Sharon Block, Terence F. Flynn, and Richard Griffin to the NLRB were unconstitutional. Yesterday’s decision invalidated the recess appointment of Craig Becker, whose recess appointment was made in March 2010. Becker's term expired in early 2012, and he has since left the board. Both the Third Circuit and the D.C. Circuit have said that these appointments were unconstitutional because the appointments were made while the Senate was in session and not in a recess as required by the U.S. Constitution...
By Glenn Spencer 5/14/2013
The Hill newspaper recently reported on a meeting between union officials and 25 Democratic Senators at which the so-called “nuclear option” was discussed. The nuclear option refers to using a simple majority of 51 senators to change Senate rules to prevent filibusters. According to the article, use of the nuclear option with regard to nominations is under serious consideration...
Last year, the Workforce Freedom Initiative published “Sabotage, Stalking & Stealth Exemptions: Special State Laws for Labor Unions,” which described various state laws that seemed to defy common sense, such as — as the title implies — union exemptions from sabotage and stalking laws. Among the numerous statutes highlighted in the report were also union exemptions from trespassing laws, including one that actually provided immunity for invading the home of an academic researcher...
By Sean P. Redmond 5/7/13
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today voided a final rule by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that required employers to post a one-sided notice informing employees of their right to join a union. Today’s decision puts to rest, at least for now, a contentious debate over the Board’s attempt to force businesses to promote the current NLRB’s union-friendly agenda...
While the Supreme Court mulls whether to hear an appeal to the landmark Noel Canning decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) stubbornly insists on hearing cases and issuing decisions as its chairman, Mark Pearce, promised it would. The Board has been on a crusade of sorts to help unionization drives, and as part of that effort it has been wantonly declaring various provisions of employee handbooks to be unlawful, even in cases in which the allegedly unlawful handbook rules are irrelevant to the underlying complaint...
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce today released a new study demonstrating that union-backed shareholder activism has failed to increase shareholder value. The report, entitled “Analysis of the Wealth Effects of Shareholder Proposals” and produced by Navigant Consulting, examined all proxy proposals “key-voted” by the AFL-CIO from 2009-2012 and was introduced during a forum on union shareholder activism. While the proposals analyzed were all key voted by the AFL-CIO, they were introduced by a wide variety of entities. These included unions, Taft-Hartley pension plans, public sector pension plans and individual investors...
The U.S. House of Representatives today passed by a vote of 219-209 H.R. 1120, the Preventing Greater Uncertainty in Labor-Management Relations Act. The legislation is an effort to end the chaos over at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) caused by the President’s invalid recess appointments of three members of that Board...
A recent memorandum by National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon offers insight into some of the NLRB’s current policies. As he has done in the past, Solomon addressed questions posed by the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Labor and Employment Law Section and issued his report on the meeting to various staff and leadership of the NLRB...