Left Launches Agenda-Driven Labor Assault
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Brian M Johnson
17 DECEMBER 2007
202-785-0266
Left Launches Agenda-Driven Labor Assault
NLRB Hearings Come Under Attack by Leading Democrats
Washington, D.C. — Following the joint House-Senate subcommittee hearing attacking the recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions, Brian Johnson, policy director at the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) announced extreme opposition to what he is calling, “nothing more than a direct assault from the left on an independent labor arbitration body.”
The NLRB, established in 1935, is charged with the task of administering the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act; the law which governs the relationships between unions and employees and employers in the private sector. The primary function of the NLRB is to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by both labor unions and employers – a function Johnson claims is continuously impeded.
With private sector union membership at an all time low of just over seven percent, according to Johnson, labor unions are using their connections in Congress to place pressure on the NLRB. “With private sector unionization shrinking, union bosses are increasingly desperate for members’ dues – they see the NLRB as a dam in their free flowing money stream which goes directly into their personal coffers”, adds Johnson.
The subcommittee hearing today is being called, “A politically-motivated attack on the authority of the NLRB” by senior Republicans representatives Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) and John Kline (R-MN). They continue adding, “To call sitting Board members before Congress and demand they justify their rulings…defies the tenets of jurisprudence and the obligations of appropriate exercise of power.”
Johnson fears that this is not the last attack on worker freedom we will see by the left in Congress. Earlier last month Congress voted to cut the budget of the only office charged with monitoring union financial activity, the Office of Labor Management Standards, and currently the Senate is pushing to force state to engage in collective bargaining with unions.
“Never have even the most liberal Congresses in history ever pushed workers rights so far out the window – the only good news is, the fall didn’t kill the workers, and they will soon begin to push back!” concludes Johnson.
