The GOP's War on Workers has continued to escalate this fall, reaching new heights (i.e. low points): the party of obstruction is trying to create a situation in which the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will become entirely unable to act.
By not allowing the Senate to fall into full recess, the GOP is effectively not allowing President Obama to appoint people to the NLRB. The five member board is currently down to three members with another soon to see his term end. The board cannot make decisions with only two members. According to the Associated Press,
“What they would be doing quite explicitly is trying to keep an agency from functioning through this maneuver,” said former board member Wilma Liebman, a Democratic appointee whose term ended in August.
For months, House Republicans have convened brief, pro forma sessions whenever Congress is away to prevent the Senate from going into a full recess. The tactic has kept Obama from using recess appointments to bypass the Senate to name members of the labor board, choose a new chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and appoint other officials unlikely to win Senate confirmation.
The labor board is a lightning rod in the ideological war between businesses and unions over the right of workers to organize. But the long-simmering conflict has boiled over this year. Republicans say the board has taken unprecedented steps that are unacceptable to business.
Republicans are thus preventing the board from ruling during a critical time. With the Boeing case continuing to pick up steam, there is no better moment for Republicans to do permanent damage to the labor movement, which they see as an enemy to their pro-corporate agenda.
“It would paralyze the labor board, which will paralyze the labor movement, which is the point,” said New Jersey Rep. Rob Andrews, a Democrat on the Education and Workforce committee.
The Boeing case, mixed with board decisions that would speed up union elections and allow smaller groups of workers to organize, is beyond the fairness threshold of current Congressional Republicans. They would rather destroy the movement than have an open debate about what is best for American workers. This is a tactic that the GOP is using in various aspects of the government: taking committees and panels hostage in order to demand fear-based negotiations.
A spokesman for Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi, top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said the board appears headed for two-member gridlock unless the White House sends up nominees that can satisfy both parties.
“Our goal is to see the administration send up qualified nominees that the members can confirm,” said Frank Macchiarola, a staff director for Enzi.
Of course, anyone half awake in the current political climate knows this can be loosely translated to mean, “you will put people in power who favor our positions or we will take away the power of the entire board.”
The practice of naming nominees during recess to skip the regular confirmation process (recess appointments) is not new:
Both Republican and Democratic presidents have made recess appointments to bypass the Senate’s authority to confirm nominees. President George W. Bush made more than 170 such appointments in his two-term presidency. Obama has made 28 recess appointments so far.
Without a quorum of three members, NLRB staff can still carry out the agency’s core functions, such as issuing complaints, investigating labor law violations and overseeing union elections. About 95 percent of cases are resolved without ever being appealed to the five-member board.
But the board still hears appeals on hundreds of cases each year, some of which can lead to new policies or change existing case law. Democrats warn that businesses caught violating labor laws could simply appeal their cases to delay fines and penalties, knowing they would never be heard while the board lacks a quorum.
It is unclear what percentage of voters are falling for the not-so-veiled attempt to disable the NLRB. This is how the government works in the new age of corporate, Tea Party politics. Do what the money sayeth or the money taketh away your rights. But the money will probably taketh away your rights regardless.