300 Bush-Era Labor Policy Rulings In Doubt

2 Federal Appeals Courts Issue Vastly Different Opinions About Their Validity

(AP)  The status of some 300 decisions by the leading federal agency that referees labor-management disputes fell under a legal cloud Friday with conflicting federal appeals court rulings issued virtually simultaneously.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington held that all the decisions handed down last year by the National Labor Relations Board are invalid because they were made by just two members. But the U.S. Court of Appeals located in Chicago took the opposite position, ruling within the same hour that the votes were appropriate and binding.

The board normally is supposed to have five members. But it had worked with three vacancies for a year because Democrats who controlled Congress objected to President George W. Bush's labor policies and refused to confirm nominees considered too pro-business.

With the appeals court decisions at odds, the Supreme Court is more likely weigh in on appeal on what Clark University industrial relations professor Gary Chaison called "a terrible mess."

The issue is being litigated in several other cases around the country, with one prior opinion out of the Court of Appeals located in Boston siding with the NLRB.

NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman called the Washington court's ruling a disappointment. Liebman, a Democrat, says she and fellow board member Peter Schaumber, a Republican, have worked to keep the board running even as it was short-staffed.

"For the last 16 months, Member Peter Schaumber and I have been dedicated to resolving cases and to avoiding a decisional backlog," Liebman said. "We have issued about 400 decisions during this period."

She noted that President Barack Obama has announced his intention to nominate two labor lawyers to the NLRB and she hoped that would soon bring the board "out from under the current legal cloud." She said she and Schaumber would consider what options they have in the meantime to deal with cases pending before them.

Chaison said, "It's like an attempt to unravel history."

While he said he couldn't think of a major precedent-setting ruling within the past year, Chaison also said that hundreds of small procedural changes and individual remedies will now be brought into question.

"Unions can claim that organizing contests they've lost can be reversed," Chaison said. "Workers who have been reinstated with back pay during organizing drives now might have to argue those cases all over again."

[whitemale08]

How about getting rid of the one where Bush declared in 2001 that 'manufacturing jobs' now included burger flippers at Burger King and Taco Bell?

[oftencensord]

""But it had worked with three vacancies for a year because Democrats who controlled Congress objected to President George W. Bush's labor policies""

"Obstructionist" Democrats in congress? This is obstructionism when Congress just ignores its responsibilities to seat judges. ... Nancy Pelosi?

It is not obstructionism when a Congressman casts a vote against a law in the representation of the people who elected them.

[strangeworld]

If anyone still thinks that modern republicans are actually interested in "free market", they only have to look to American business's childlike paranoia about organized labor to see otherwise. American business has held the puppet strings of the GOP since Reagan was elected, and it was never so sickeningly obvious as during bush jr.'s reign. The government was responsible for stacking the deck in favor of business in just about every case...throwing a person's right to organize a union, strike, etc., out the window in an attempt to pander to big-business and their large GOP campaign contributions. The American worker, whether in a union or not, has lost ground for much of the last 28 years, while at the same time business has become cash rich and set up foreign bank accounts and other vehicles to hide their money away from taxes and prying eyes. The recent American practice of business awarding large compensation packages and bonuses to management, even when the companies were supposedly losing money, is more republican BS...a shifting of the wealth of the US from the middle class to the wealthiest among us. Obama needs to pick a justice that will apply the law fairly to all, unlike the nutless GOP puppets on the court like Scalia, Thomas, lito, and Roberts - all can be counted on to throw the Constitution of this country to the wind if a ruling by them using it as a guide would mean that American big-business would be inconvenienced.

[beach671]

Have Democrats abolished the evil NSPS personnel system in DOD? Nope.
Have Democrats abolished the BRAC '05 Joint Basing that's eliminating middle class jobs/Federal Civil Service jobs to replace them with cheapo contract workers? Nope.
Have Democrats came out with a plan to fund their socialism as the Federal Budget grossly exceeds revenues? Nope.
Have the Democrats figured out how they are going to fund 3/4ths of the Federal Civil Servants under the Pre-Reagan retirement system that are cashing out right now with the good retirement system from long ago? Nope.
Have the Democrats figured out what they are going to do for the Federal Workers under the Post-Reagan retirement system that cashed their TSP's in for annuities with the contracted bank that could go bankrupt? All those Federal workers that PAID for their own retirements could see their retirements merely disappear when the banks go bankrupt as TSP annuities are not FDIC.
Didn't Democrats push for illegal immigrants to get mortgages in America starting in 2005 that collapsed our economy and led to the above?
Have Democrats gone into the books of DOD to see where that $2 Trillion Donald Rumsfeld said DOD lost and doesn't know where it went? Isn't their budget 1/4th of that? How did they get that much to lose?
You see the elite and politicians are not separated by "Political Parties". They both have destroyed America. Both played parts in bankrupting us. Both have supported building up China and both are profiting from China.

Neither of them have left us Americans alone and both have attacked our Constitutional Rights and basic right to our own lives. I'm neither Democrat or Republican, I'm an American. Both of those political parties are not American and should both be denounced.

[cattlekate1]

CBS: I would like a list of the 300 rulings. Thanks!

[starleo146]

Posted by weedapeapl

I just wanted to mention that Arlen Specter is now a Democrat. Pretty soon Al Frankin takes his Senate seat.

HA HA HA HA
Posted by johndevinejr at 3:08 PM : May 1, 200

There is a God for 8 years I was saying God Please

[quapawsix]

Lazy ass workers, Gee I don't know guy's it's hard to get motivated when you are being paid chump change and then have to put up with bosses who can't even get their own act together as well as greedy owners who give you the attitude if you don't like the way things are ran around here there's the door don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out. Makes me want to get motivated. If you don't care about your workers then don't expect them to care about you or your product.

[johndevinejr]

It's not the employer's fault that every lazy arsed employee files claims.
Posted by Rowdy108 at 11:36 AM : May 1, 2009


Hey Rowdy,

Thank you for your moronic posts. Every one of them helps us liberals.


Please get more of your goon republicans on TV spouting this kind of nonsense and I won't have to contribute so much money to the DNC.


By the way only 21% of Americans identify themselves as republican. I am sure there are more, but they are too ashamed to admit it, as they should be.

.

[maxonhudson]

"These people tried to create a procedure that the law does not allow."

Yes, that pretty much sums up the entire Bush administration's 8 years in a nutshell.

[johndevinejr]

By yielding to insurance companies and making free healthcare to all not an option, he has failed to do that is needed to end the medical insurance corruption that consumes 18% of GNP, consumes the labors of 1 out of 10 workers and 18% of all the goods and services produced in America.
Posted by Alabama_John at 12:26 PM : May 1, 2009

You republicans really don't deal well with reality. The mess created by repubs will take years to fix.

And more and more it starts to look like we will have the years to do it.

Keep flogging failed republican polices and talking gibberish and you wil boost your 21% to a big 5%
The longer we keep republican goons and morons out of office, the better the country will be.

[johndevinejr]

Posted by weedapeapl

I just wanted to mention that Arlen Specter is now a Democrat. Pretty soon Al Frankin takes his Senate seat.

HA HA HA HA

[bradkt1]

You need three votes out of five to issue a valid decision by any administrative body...not two. These people tried to create a procedure that the law does not allow.

[hologram5]

Our first black president will turn us all into slaves.
Posted by weedapeapl at 12:43 PM : May 1, 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Has nothing to do with Obama, you were turned into a serf the first hour you worked on your first job. It is called TAXES, or, indentured servitude.

[tmittelstaed]

Wilma Liebman was appointed to NLRB by Clinton, so I would not characterize her as a conservative democrat. She was also designated by Obama as NLRB Chair in January of this year, and labor loves her. Schaumber is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. While you can complain all you want about NLRB board decisions over the past year, the fact is that the two of them must obviously made a huge number of deals back and forth to get so many cases decided. I would say the last year has probably been very evenly divided between labor and employers on NLRB

Traditionally the board consists of 3 positions from the majority party and 2 positions from the minority party. Bush should have had no trouble nominating a democrat that was acceptable to the Democrats and a Republican, even if the Democratic party was still going to hold the remaining seat open. The fact that he didn't clearly indicates he was trying to go against tradition and stack the NLRB with Republicans. There's no excuse for the board being that small now other than presidential incompetence.

I hope the Supreme court rules the decisions were valid. If it does not then it will be turning boards like the NLRB into political footballs and it will greatly encourage obstructionist tactics in congress for these nominations. If both parties know that decisions of understaffed boards like the NLRB will be binding even if they hold up appointments to the board, it really reduces the incentive to hold up these nominations in the first place. we already have enough problems with court appointments being held up by political games on either side of the aisle.

[stn_sage]

I agree with the 'D.C.' decision! That board is supposed to be composed of FIVE people NOT two!

The two existing board members did an OUTSTANDING job to carry on!

If there is any fault here, it belongs to an incompetent former president and (mis) leaders of Congress! Who FAILED to do their jobs in this matter!

If the Supreme Court dipped to FOUR justices, would be consider their decisions to be final?!

I don't think so! The solution is simple!

President Obama only has to nominate three new members to the board! The trick will be
to get our "do-nothing" Congress off its' arses and get the nominees passed! THAT, might
require DIVINE intervention! Amen.

[DocD--2008]

It does not come down to Republican or Democrat, what it comes down to is the courts have been given too much power. Why is it the word of these idiots sitting on the bench are the whole decision? This proves they are more messed up than the rest of us. Take the lawyers out of the legal system and go back to good old common sense and stop this legal back and forth crap where a few lawyers are more powerful than all of Congress.

It's time for the PEOPLE to take back the power. Screw the lawyers.

[skyk-2009]

Why wouldn't they be in favor of the employer? Do you think every claim by some lazy arsed employee in a snit because someone actually asked them to lift a finger, which is what the majority of these cases are.

You know we need to support our businesses who are ACTUALLY HIRING PEOPLE and giving them a job.

It's not the employer's fault that every lazy arsed employee files claims.
Posted by Rowdy108 at 11:36 AM : May 1, 2009

LOL You are about a hundred years out of touch there aren't you? We settled this issue almost a hundred years ago... you know the right of Workers to Self Organize and to Represent themselves... It's all right there in the law! Oh that's right... You have trouble with that function don't you.... Well you can download the law and take it to a local elementary school.

[weedapeapl]

So the Republicans get blamed for being obstructionists but it is really the Dems.
Posted by jonesjep at 10:19 AM : May 1, 2009

Is it any surprise?

If you want to know what the Democrats REALLY believe, just look at the accusations they make against others.

They are best described by their own accusations.

Projection is a major part of Democrat rhetoric.

[weedapeapl]

Another day, another failure of the stock market to rise higher than it opened in the MORNING of Jan 20.

Obama is STILL making Bush look good.

[skyk-2009]

Alabama_John at 12:26 PM : May 1, 2009

Are you suggesting that there is someone in the Confederate Party who can do better? LOL I mean COME ON!! It's time we accepted the reality that we have but ONE Party today and Independents we can start to turn around the terrible mess left our President. When we sit like you, nit picking, when the alternative is the Klan Man from South Carolina!! LOL YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!!