The Republican “outrage” machine has been operating in high-dudgeon mode since the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint against the Boeing Co. in April.
But as David Madland of the Center for American Progress Action Fund points out, the manufactured Boeing outrage is “part of a long-running, highly orchestrated right-wing campaign against workers and their unions that has now reached a fevered pitch.”
This is not, of course, the conservative movement’s first attempt to prevent the Obama administration from trying to protect workers’ basic rights to join a union and collectively bargain.
Earlier this year, Madland writes, 176 House Republicans (75 percent of the caucus) voted to eliminate all funding for the NLRB and while that failed to pass, a continuing resolution previously passed by the House included a $50 million reduction in the NLRB’s budget and would have forced NLRB staff members to be furloughed for 55 days, causing a backlog of cases to pile up.
Madland points out that congressional Republicans also are fighting to overturn the National Mediation Board’s (NMB’s) new rule that says air and rail union elections should be decided like any other election—including congressional elections—by a majority of votes cast. Previously each worker who did not cast a vote in a representation election was automatically counted as a “No” vote.
Senate Republicans also attempted to attach an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill that would have blocked workers at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from voting to join a union. Madland writes these congressional actions are in addition to the state attacks on workers’ rights being waged in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states. He says the attacks on the NLRB over the Boeing case are part of the:
conservative movement’s campaign to weaken workers’ rights. Sadly, conservatives have shown they want to eliminate laws protecting workers’ rights to join a union and collectively bargain, and when they can’t get rid of the law, they seek to prevent its enforcement.
Click here for his full article.
Keep in mind that when the NLRB issues a complaint, it’s only the first step in a long process of determining whether the company violated the law, a process in which Boeing will have ample opportunity to present its side of the case.
This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on May 18, 2011. Reprinted with permission.
About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and has written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When his collar was still blue, he carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. He has also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold his blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent.
