Labor Rights, Under Republican Attack

[dtotire]

Labor Rights, Under Republican Attack

By MARK BARENBERG, JAMES BRUDNEY and KARL KLARE

Published: October 13, 2011


In the past month, the National Labor Relations Board has come under furious attack from Republicans in Congress, and decades-old workers’ rights are at risk. Backed by a well-financed lobbying and publicity offensive, Republicans are using a recent labor-law complaint against Boeing to achieve a radical goal that goes far beyond the legal issues in the case: unraveling workers’ rights that have been part of the fabric of our social contract since the Great Depression.

In April, the labor board’s acting general counsel filed a complaint against Boeing, alleging that the company retaliated against unionized workers by opening a nonunion aircraft facility in South Carolina, instead of using a facility in its home state of Washington. Citing multiple public statements by Boeing executives, the general counsel contended that the company decided to locate the plant in South Carolina in significant part to punish its Washington workers for having exercised their right to strike, enshrined in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

Boeing has an opportunity at trial and in administrative and court appeals to disprove these allegations. It also may avoid the general counsel’s proposed remedy — an order restoring the aircraft production in question to Washington — if it can show that the order would be unduly burdensome.

But for Republicans, the legal process is beside the point. Representative Darrell Issa of California has disparaged the labor board as a “rogue agency,” and the presidential candidate Mitt Romney has called the general counsel’s complaint a “job killer” — even though the outcome of the case will determine only the location, not the number, of jobs. Last month, in an ambush against a federal agency’s powers in a pending case, the Republican-controlled House, voting almost entirely along party lines, approved a bill that would eliminate one of the paramount federal rights afforded workers for decades by prohibiting the labor board from ever ordering any employer to restore jobs illegally outsourced or relocated.


more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/opinion/labor-rights-under-republican-attack.html?_r=1&nl=opinion&emc=tya3

[demosincebirth]

1. Labor has alway been under attack by the republicans since

they morphed in the late 19th century

[libinnyandia]

2. GOP union voters

That's why I am so disgusted with union members who vote Republica. Reagan Democrats just didn't have a clue about what Reagan would do. It was kind of ironic that the union that supported Ronnie was killed by him. So many in the movement are so arrogant: They won't touch us, we're to important, too powerful, etc" When the union leaders talk about sitting out the 2012 election Ii just want to throw pies in thei faces.