Democrats Using NLRB to Tilt the Field



Opinion Editorial

                                                       NLRB tilts field

 
It’s as plain as the nose on your face that the National Labor Relations Board, controlled by Democrats, wants to tilt the union-management playing field further toward unions.
Unions could get not get “card check” (which would make union recognition mandatory upon presentation of cards signed by a majority of workers) passed when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Now their friends at the NLRB are turning to plan B.
The board asked for comment on, among other things, proposals to shorten the �interval between a union’s petition for a representation election and the holding of the vote. Coupled with the board’s recent attempt to keep Boeing Corp. from opening an aircraft assembly plant in South Carolina, the proposals should make the board’s anti-employer slant clear.
Half of all elections are held within 38 days; the arithmetical average is 57 days. Currently, employer challenges to the eligibility of certain workers to vote — often by claims that those workers are ineligible supervisors — are a major source of delay. The board proposes to hear those challenges after the voting instead of before. (Presumably those votes would not be counted if a challenge is upheld.)
Unions clearly do not like to see employers oppose them, but American law has never required employers to roll over and play dead for an organizing drive. The board’s proposal means that employers would have less time to organize opposition. As it is, they often are surprised by an election petition because unions have been effective in keeping their solicitation of support a secret.
Unions win 64 percent of representational elections. There is simply no reason beyond favoritism to change the rules now.