From the Desk of Steve Cabot:

Having failed to get congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), organized labor is now benefitting from proposed new rules issued by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The new rules will ease the way for organized labor to win union elections by dramatically truncating the period of time from petition to election. It currently takes an average of 57 days from petition to election; under the new rules that period would be reduced to from 10 to 21 days. Of course, union organizers often spend months convincing employees to vote for unionization, prior to the filing of a petition. Now, the newly imposed brief interregnum will significantly curtail a company’s ability to educate employees about the disadvantages of unionization.

As if that were not sufficiently injurious to Corporate America, the NLRB rules would also permit the electronic filing of election petitions, defer litigation about voter eligibility until after an election, require employers to provide a union with the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of all employees prior to an election, consolidate all litigious matters into a single post-election appeals action in order to eliminate individual actions that could delay an election.

One can only speculate what additional pro-union rules and regulations the NLRB may issue in the coming months. Certainly issues of wages and benefits will be an enticing subject for the NLRB ideologues to consider.

Corporate America has, thus far, been too complacent, believing that because the number of union members has decreased over the years that unions have been rendered ineffectual. In fact, unions are vigorously preparing for an aggressive assault on Corporate America, and its chief advocate and front-line ally is the NLRB, which is proposing a number of radical threats to Corporate America that should not be ignored.

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From the desk of Steve Cabot:

Businesses across America are suffering at the hands of an aggressively pro-union National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). As a result, 86 national business associations and 131 state and city associations have formed the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace. The Coalition’s mission is to amend the National Labor Relations Act, so that businesses can operate at maximum rates of productivity and profitability.

The Coalition supports the Job Protection Act, H. R. 1976, which would, according to an article in the P J Tattler, clarify the NLRA “with respect to state right to work laws, reining the agency in after a series of unprecedented actions that heavily tilt toward Big Labor.”

From allowing micro unions to organize to preventing Boeing from operating in a right-to-work state, from permitting union organizers to trespass on private corporate property to promoting card checks, the NLRB has been proving to be one of the most injurious institutions to the health and growth of American businesses.

We urge all readers of the Cabot Institute of Labor Relations blog to contact their congressional representatives and voice their support for the Job Protection Act, H R 1976.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

Just before Americans were to celebrate the unofficial beginning of summer over the Memorial Day weekend, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided to make Catholic educators unhappy. It declared that St. Xavier University was not sufficiently religious to be exempt from federal jurisdiction. That ruling followed an earlier one against the Christian Brothers’ Manhattan College.

Though a Court of Appeals has twice ordered the NLRB to cease harassing religious institutions, the NLRB – in its aggressive pro-union actions – has ignored the court. It hasn’t mattered to the Board that in 2002 and 2008, the court reversed the NLRB, thus exempting religious institutions from the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. The Board insists that it has the right to determine if a religious institution has a “substantial religious character.” And if it doesn’t meet the Board’s criteria, then the Board can impose its policies. This dispute is likely to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

It becomes increasingly apparent that the NLRB will do whatever is necessary to advance the agenda of organized labor, even if that means obviating federal law when it comes to religious institutions. College faculty members, after all, represent a huge pool of potential dues-paying union members.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board’s decision to prevent Boeing from opening a new out-of-state manufacturing facility has apparently inspired other workers to file complaints with the Board.

The American Guild of Musical Artists has now filed a federal complaint against the New York City Opera, which wants to move out of its famed Lincoln Center home after 45 years. The opera company is in serious financial difficulty and deeply in debt. Not only will the company move to a more affordable space, but it plans to reduce the number of operas it will stage next year, from five to three.

The opera company’s 200 members, including fifty choristers and ten production workers, are claiming that the move to a less expensive venue and the company’s intention to produce fewer operas than last season will result in reduced pay.

Of course, it will: that’s the point of restructuring. If the company is to survive and continue providing first-class opera performances to opera goers, it must cut costs. And one of its major costs is its labor expenses.

One can now expect that unionized workers of any company that wants to relocate to file a complaint with the NLRB. The Boeing decision has opened a Pandora’s Box of complaints that will continue to place obstacles against new opportunities not only for increasing profitability and productivity, but also (in this case) against a corporation’s very survival.

Corporate America can only hope that the NLRB does not approve this latest operatic complaint. It is an aria sung out of tune with logic.

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