NLRB again postpones requirement
for displaying employee rights poster
For the second time, the National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has
postponed the implementation date for
its new rule requiring all private-sector
employers to display an 11-by-17-inch
poster informing workers of their rights
under the National Labor Relations
Act, including the right to unionize.
The rule originally was set to take
effect on Nov. 14, 2011. However, the
NLRB pushed it back to Jan. 31, 2012,
“in order to allow for enhanced educa-
tion and outreach to employers, partic-
ularly small and medium sized busi-
nesses.”
Late last month the NLRB set a new
implementation date of April 30, 2012.
This time, the federal agency said in a
statement that “postponing the effective
date of the rule would facilitate the res-
olution of the legal challenges that have
been filed with respect to the rule.”
As reported in the Sept. 2 Labor
Day edition of the Northwest Labor
Press, the business world flipped out
after the NLRB issued the proposal,
claiming the federal agency was un-
fairly promoting unionization. The
U.S. Chamber of Commerce went so
far as to file a lawsuit seeking to block
it, maintaining the rule violates federal
labor and regulatory laws, as well as
First Amendment Rights.
The posters, which would be dis-
tributed free of charge, are similar to
ones the U.S. Department of Labor re-
quires thousands of federal contractors
to post.
“Just as employers are required to
JANUARY 6, 2012
notify their employees of their rights
around health and safety, wages and
discrimination on the job, this rule
gives clear information to employees
about their rights under this fundamen-
tal labor law so that workers are better
equipped to exercise and enforce
them,” said AFL-CIO President
Richard Trumka.
Since establishing the new regula-
tion, NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Lieb-
man departed after her term expired in
August, and Craig Becker’s recess ap-
pointment expired at the end of 2011.
A Senate GOP filibuster blocked a per-
manent seat for Becker, who was gen-
eral counsel for the Service Employees
International Union.
Another seat has been vacant for
several years, as Senate Republicans
have threatened to block all nominees
presented by President Barack Obama.
The two holdovers on the NLRB are
Republican Brian Hayes and Chairman
Mark Pearce, a Democrat.
At full strength, the Board is sup-
posed to have five members. It needs at
least three to conduct any business.
Obama’s latest nominees are Oper-
ating Engineers General Counsel
Richard Griffin and Labor Department
official Sharon Black. Black, now
deputy assistant labor secretary for
congressional affairs, was labor coun-
sel from 2005-09 for the late Senate
Labor Committee Chairman Edward
M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), after seven
years in top staff attorney posts at the
NLRB. Griffin joined the Operating
Engineers’ legal department in 1983,
and has been its general counsel for the
last 17 years. He too was an NLRB
staff attorney, from 1981-83.
U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-
S.C.), said he will place “an indefinite
hold” on Black and Griffin.
Graham alleges the NLRB collabo-
rated with the Machinists Union in the
recent, now-ended, labor law-breaking
complaint the agency filed against Boe-
ing. The agency’s acting general coun-
sel had to bring the charge after Boe-
ing execs openly said they moved 787
production to anti-union South Car-
olina to retaliate against the Machinists
for standing up for their rights. Such re-
taliation breaks U.S. labor law.
Many union officials believe Re-
publicans are purposely refusing to
confirm anyone put before them in or-
der to render the NLRB inoperable.
Graham confirmed that theory, stat-
ing that “Given its recent actions, the
NLRB as inoperable could be consid-
ered progress.”
According to the group American
Rights at Work, Congressional Repub-
licans have made nearly 50 separate as-
saults on the NLRB since January 2011
by holding hearings, issuing subpoe-
nas, and proposing bills to gut the
agency’s funding.
In November, House Republicans
approved a bill that gives employers
new tools to combat and delay elec-
tions by workers who try to form
unions. It has not been taken up by the
Senate.
John Walsh (center wearing baseball cap) was part of a Witness for Peace
delegation that toured Colombia last November following passage of the
Colombia Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Above he listens to
stories from labor activists and their families at a demonstration.
Labor rights in Colombia
— rhetoric vs. reality
By JOHN WALSH
Before the U.S. Congress passed the
free trade agreement with Colombia,
U.S. President Barack Obama and
Colombian President Juan Manuel San-
tos announced their “labor action plan”
to mitigate some of the worst abuses of
labor rights in the Latin American na-
tion that consistently experiences more
murders of unionists than anyplace else
in the world. What is the reality today?
As part of a delegation conducted by
Witness for Peace, three activists from
Portland, myself included, met with
Colombian workers in the automotive,
sugar, and port sectors. We spoke with
officials of established unions and with
leaders of groups of workers seeking to
form unions.
The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s
representative in Colombia shared his
perspective with us. Colombian human
rights groups and representatives of the
indigenous and Afro-Colombian popu-
lations told us of their experiences.
Workers continue to suffer indirect
and contingent employment. Cosmetic
changes have occurred in some cases as
a facade of compliance with the labor
action plan — the structures used to
subcontract hiring have changed their
names — but workers still lack job se-
curity, health and retirement benefits,
and organizing rights. Those who suf-
fer occupational injury or illness are
cast aside without compensation or sup-
port. Threats against the lives of labor
leaders continue, and happened while
we were in Colombia. Employers con-
tinue to use sham “collective pacts” to
pre-empt genuine unions.
More specifically:
• 164 auto workers injured on the job
and dumped by GM have maintained
an encampment occupying the curb
across the street from the U.S. embassy
for 125 days (as of Dec. 1), seeking
recognition of their injuries and their
union; the company coerces injured
workers into quitting, withholds their
medical documentation, and uses a col-
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
lective pact to block workers from or-
ganizing.
• Sugar cane cutters who struck in
2008 still await a verdict in the trial of
their leaders on dubious charges made
against them by management inform-
ants, including an informant already
discredited by the Colombian Supreme
Court when he made similar allegations
against a sitting senator; meanwhile the
cane cutters petition the Minister of La-
bor for official recognition of their
union.
• Workers in the thriving port sector
live in poverty and make around $10 a
day without job security; since Colom-
bian ports were privatized, development
benefits wealthy insiders rather than the
public.
Notwithstanding the obstacles and
threats, Colombian social movements
know how to organize. University stu-
dents, through mass marches and occu-
pations nationwide, succeeded in com-
pelling the government to withdraw
legislation that would have encouraged
the privatization of higher education.
The unarmed indigenous guard protects
the rights of their communities against
the advanced weaponry of both the
army and the guerrilas.
We can help working people in
Colombia win more fights by insisting,
at a minimum, that the commitments of
the labor action plan be honored not
only in word but in deed before the free
trade agreement goes into effect.
In a globalized economy ruled by
transnational corporations, if we fail to
stop the abuses Colombian workers ex-
perience today, we can expect to suffer
the same treatment ourselves in the fu-
ture.
(Editor’s Note: John Walsh is a
member of Teamsters Local 767M,
Graphic Communications Conference,
in Portland.
The Oregon AFL-CIO Executive
Board on Dec. 16 voted to send a letter
of support to sugar cane workers on
trial for leading a strike in 2008.)
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