POLITICO: …Using a thin partisan majority on the National Labor Relations Board, President Barack Obama’s Democratic appointees have issued a string of rulings that favor unions — including six pro-labor decisions in just the past few days. On Thursday, the NLRB issued a momentous 3-2 ruling along party lines that may make it easier for McDonald’s to unionize, reversing a 34-year precedent. The board subsequently issued five additional decisions ruling for unions on less-momentous matters ranging from whether a worker may demand that a union rep be present during a drug test (yes) to whether a employer may exclude union reps from voluntary peer review committees (no). Two of these new rulings were made public Monday, concluding a flurry of NLRB votes from a board that observers say is more pro-union than any since the early 1980s…
The NLRB is challenging the federal courts on whether a company may include “mandatory arbitration” clauses in employment contracts that sign away employees’ rights to sue their bosses. The courts say such clauses are legal; the Obama NLRB has ruled, repeatedly, that they are not, even when workers are given the chance to opt out. An NLRB rule that largely eliminated management litigation prior to a union organizing vote —dubbed by business opponents the “ambush election rule” — has, since its April implementation, shortened by 40 percent the time it takes to hold a union election,according to the Wall Street Journal. Shorter election periods are believed more advantageous to union organizing.
More targets lie ahead, including another case on the so-called joint employer issue plaguing McDonald’s and a possible injunction against Wal-Mart concerning store closures in California… (more)
EDITOR: We can imagine Geoerge Meany and Walter Reuther in a heavenly chorir (or wherever) singing “Happy Days are here again.”
Too little too late to ever have any effect on the fact that half of America can’t earn a living in their own country.