Topic: NLRB Rule Speeding Union Elections Thrown Out by Judge

[Pandora]

It's a WIN for our side!

A rule change by the National Labor Relations Board that allows for faster votes on union elections was thrown out by a federal judge who said the agency lacked a quorum when it approved the measure.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said only two of the three members of the board required to constitute a quorum actually voted on the rule. He said representation elections will have to continue under previously established procedures unless the board votes with a proper quorum. The rule went into effect on April 30.

... The rule change, challenged in court by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, simplified and shortened balloting at a time when the unionized share of the workforce is falling, according to labor relations consultant Phillip Wilson. The compressed schedule could have cut the time permitted for voting in half to as few as 15 days, Wilson said.

Unions win 87 percent of elections held 15 days or less after a request, a rate that falls to 58 percent when the vote takes place after 36 to 40 days, according to a February report by Bloomberg Government.

Two of the board’s three members voted in favor of adopting the new rule, according to the opinion. A third member of the board didn’t cast a vote. Because he had previously voted against the rule, the board held that he had “effectively indicated his opposition,” Judge Boasberg wrote.

“Two is simply not enough,” Boasberg wrote. “The board lacked the authority to issue it, and therefore it cannot stand.”

[EW1(SG)]

Good.

[IronDioPriest]

The compressed schedule could have cut the time permitted for voting in half to as few as 15 days, Wilson said.

Unions win 87 percent of elections held 15 days or less after a request, a rate that falls to 58 percent when the vote takes place after 36 to 40 days...

This was yet another regulatory overreach by this administration that has promised to overreach in the absence of a compliant congress. It was nothing less than another attempt to bolster and shore up union membership for the benefit of the Democrat party.

Good for this judge who stood for the rule of law and separation of powers, even if the "rule" was overturned on the merits and not due to a breach of the constitution. I'll take that any way I can get it.

[Libertas]

I think any appeal should be upheld as well if persued, isn't DC Appellate Court still comprised of mostly non-proglodytes?

If Wiki info is right, advantage could be slight, I see Henderson had a dissent in the Parker case about DC gun rights.  Could be 5-3 or 4-4 on any given issue...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_District_of_Columbia_Circuit

[BMG]

Did y'all see the dirty tricks the dems were trying to pull in order to sneak this through though?

O’s two Democratic appointees wanted to give unions a shot at quietly gathering the necessary signatures for an election and then dumping the petition on management before the company had a chance to make its case to the employees against unionization. The third member of the NLRB, Republican Brian Hayes, opposed the plan. No problem, though — Dems win 2-1, right? Nope. Not if Hayes doesn’t vote:

    When the final rule came up, the NLRB’s lone Republican commissioner, Brian Hayes, did not cast a vote. He was given only a matter of hours on the NLRB’s electronic ballot system before the Democratic majority went ahead and published it that day, without anyone requesting a response.

    Mr. Becker claimed that Mr. Hayes had “effectively indicated his opposition” and therefore he was “present” even though he was not, in fact, present. Basically, the NLRB argued that the quorum requirement was satisfied because there were three members in office when the rule was “approved.”

With a final vote of just 2-0 on what’s supposed to be a five-member Board, the court ruled that there was no quorum and therefore the rule was invalid. Think of Hayes’s absence as the anti-union version of those Wisconsin Democrats who fled the Capitol last year in order to deny Scott Walker a quorum to pass his collective bargaining reforms. What happens, though, now that Obama’s gone and dubiously recess-appointed a bunch of new members to the NLRB? Presumably the new members will pass the “ambush” election rule with a quorum and then the next court battle will be over whether those recess appointments were in fact valid. That suit has already been filed, in fact; if the next court throws out the recess appointments then the ambush rule stays blocked. If not, then President Romney’s our only hope.

[Pandora]

Yup, I did see that.

Mr. Becker claimed that Mr. Hayes had “effectively indicated his opposition” and therefore he was “present” even though he was not, in fact, present. Basically, the NLRB argued that the quorum requirement was satisfied because there were three members in office when the rule was “approved.”

They're Democrats and they can damn well "deem" anything they damn well please.

[Libertas]

I wish I could deem all Dem's extinct...

 

[Pandora]

.... That board is supposed to be a fair arbiter of labor disputes, but the president packed the NLRB with Big Labor activists, and the board tried to ram a union-favoring “ambush rule” through to implementation. The rule would slash the amount of time employees and employers have to consider unionization in non-unionized work places from six weeks to as little as 15 days, potentially tilting America’s increasingly non-unionized work force toward unionization. When unions can plot and ambush workers and employers with snap elections, their winning percentage goes way up, but when more time is allowed for both sides to weigh all the potential ramifications of unionization, workers routinely reject unionization.

The NLRB was short two of its five members when it voted for the ambush rule. Additionally, only two of its sitting members actually voted on the rule. The lone Republican on the board abstained from the vote, denying the board a quorum.

The US Senate took up the board’s illegal vote, or to be more accurate, it could have and should have. But ahead of the rule’s implementation this month, the Democrat-controlled Senate declined to put a halt to it. But in so doing, the Democrats may have won what will prove to be the most fleeting of victories.

First, a federal judge struck the ambush rule down on the reasonable grounds that two votes do not make a quorum on a five-member board. But the NLRB isn’t taking a federal judge’s ruling for the last word. Despite the clear ruling against them, the board is signaling its intent to implement the rule anyway. Like its vote to adopt the rule, and President Obama’s later move to pack the board with more Big Labor supporting members without consulting the Senate, the board’s move would be illegal.

Unbelievable.  What exactly is it going to take to stop these people?!

Nevermind.  Rhetorical.

RTWT

[Libertas]

Send in the Marshalls!