WSJ Notes MLA Alert: Unions Look to Labor Board to Reverse Policy
Regular readers of EFCA Report are up to speed on the status of President Obama's proposed nominees to fill two vacant slots on the National Labor Relations Board. In late April, we featured two detailed posts on a number of issues the Board is likely to tackle once fully constituted, noting several areas where the "Obama Board" is likely to reverse positions in decisions handed down by the "Bush Board."
Today's Wall Street Journal cites to our observations:
Law firms are advising corporate clients to be on alert. If confirmed by the Senate, the two new board nominees -- labor-side lawyers Craig Becker and Mark Pearce -- would join longtime member and chairman Wilma Liebman to create "a majority bloc distinctly in favor of expanding the rights of unions and workers," law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP said in a report addressing issues likely to be revisited by the NLRB. "Employers must…prepare for the resulting shifts in the regulatory landscape."
Once new nominees are in place, the board will face a lengthy agenda of issues including: whether more workers whose jobs fall in the gray area between salaried management and hourly laborers should be allowed to unionize; how much freedom workers should have to use company email systems to promote union membership; how much access union organizers should have to workplaces; and what constitutes unacceptable intimidation by employers seeking to oppose union organizing drives.
An additional interesting item from the WSJ piece regarding the new Board and EFCA:
[Current Board Chair Wilma] Liebman said she is "agnostic" on the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, the labor-backed proposal in Congress that would make it easier for unions to organize workers without secret ballot elections as well as give federal arbitrators authority to impose contract settlements in cases where labor and management can't conclude deals.
