NLRB will continue to enforce labor law despite court ruling
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) —
The National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) will continue to issue rulings
enforcing the nation’s labor law, de-
spite a Jan. 25 federal appeals court rul-
ing saying President Barack Obama il-
legally appointed three of its members
and that a case they ruled on should be
thrown out.
The judges, all Republican ap-
pointees, also ruled the NLRB doesn’t
have a quorum. Their decision, if it
stands, tosses the agency into a legal
limbo where it can’t decide labor-man-
agement disputes because it lacks a
quorum to do so.
NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce re-
sponded that the judges’ ruling applies
to just one case. The NLRB will con-
sult with the Justice Department about
...Filibuster reform fails
(From Page 1)
With Democrats in control of the
Senate in the 113th Congress, Merkley,
Udall and Harkin introduced Senate
Resolution 4 on opening day. [Under
the U.S. Constitution, the Senate can
change its operating rules on the first
day of the legislative session with the
support of a simple majority.] The res-
olution had 18 co-sponsors (no others
from Oregon or Washington) and, ac-
cording to Udall, enough votes to pass.
It was at that point Reid went to
work on his “compromise” plan, going
so far as to delay opening day by several
weeks (using a parliamentary procedure
calling for a recess at the end of the first
day instead of adjournment) to allow
time to work out the details with Mc-
Connell.
“It isn’t filibuster reform,” Shane
Larson, a legislative aide to the CWA,
told the Daily Beast blog. “And to call it
filibuster reform is mislabeling it. It
doesn’t change the filibuster at all. It is a
procedural reform that speeds up the
Senate, and that is all.”
While campaigning for reform,
Merkley agreed that “without a talking
filibuster, obstructionist senators will
still be able to silently stall any piece of
legislation they want without any ac-
countability.”
A day after the Jan. 25 Senate vote,
McConnell’s campaign launched a new
fundraising pitch to conservatives tout-
ing the senator’s work in stopping the
reform, The Hill newspaper reported.
“We beat the liberals,” the pitch read.
“A group of the Senate’s most liberal
senators, fueled by left-wing groups
like MoveOn, have been pushing a dan-
gerous scheme to change the rules of
the United States Senate and funda-
mentally alter the checks and balances
of our system,” read the email, written
by campaign manager Jesse Benton.
He goes on to declare that Mc-
Connell, “stopped that scheme dead in
its tracks.”
CWA’s Cohen said filibusters could
sidetrack much of what labor wants
from the new Congress.
whether and where to appeal the court
ruling, but that decision “may be up to
the Justice Department,” added NLRB
Communications Director Nancy Clee-
land.
“The Board respectfully disagrees
with the decision and believes the pres-
ident’s position in the matter will ulti-
mately be upheld,” Pearce said. “This
order applies to only one specific case,
Noel Canning, and similar questions
have been raised in more than a dozen
cases pending in other courts of ap-
peals.
“In the meantime, the Board has im-
portant work to do,” he added. Unions,
workers and companies “who come to
us seek and expect careful considera-
tion and resolution of their cases, and
for that reason, we will continue to per-
form our statutory duties and issue de-
cisions.”
Union leaders backed the Board’s
stand that the recess appointments are
legal, and that the Board is acting
legally. AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka said the court’s ruling is “radi-
cal and unprecedented.” Change To
Win Chairman Joe Hansen called it
“misguided.”
“The real issue here is the Senate’s
inability to confirm qualified nomi-
nees,” Hansen added. “Senate Repub-
licans, aided by a broken rules system,
are carrying the water of big business
and denying workers and unions a fair
shake” by filibustering NLRB nomi-
nees, forcing Obama into recess ap-
pointments.
Both the Senate and House Repub-
licans filed friend of the court briefs on
the side of the company and challeng-
ing the NLRB.
The case itself pitted Noel Canning,
a Yakima, Wash., Coca Cola distribu-
tor, against the Board. The NLRB said
the firm broke labor law in declaring an
impasse in 2010 bargaining with Team-
sters Local 760, and wanted to enforce
its bargaining order. But the basic case
got lost in the constitutional issue of
Obama’s recess appointments to the
NLRB.
The firm argued the appointments
were illegal and the Board didn’t have a
quorum and thus could not decide the
case. The three-judge panel of the U.S.
EE
R
F
Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. —
the court that handles almost all federal
agency cases — agreed.
The judges said Obama named
three NLRB members, using his power
to fill agency positions when the Senate
is in recess, when it wasn’t in recess.
The Senate had been meeting in 1-
minute-or-less sessions, every three
days. That means it was technically not
in recess, appellate Judge David Sen-
telle, a GOP appointee, wrote.
Thus, Obama’s appointments were
not constitutional, the NLRB didn’t
have a quorum and it could not decide
the case, Sentelle added.
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PAGE 6
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
FEBRUARY 1, 2013