300 Bush-Era Labor Policy Rulings In Doubt

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.