by Mike Hall, May 11, 2011
“Disgraceful and dangerous” is how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today described attempts by Republican senators and state attorneys general to intimidate the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They are demanding the NLRB drop its complaint against the Boeing Co.
In April, the nonpartisan, independent NLRB issued a complaint against Boeing for moving a planned production line for its 787 Dreamliner from its unionized Puget Sound, Wash., plant to a nonunion facility in South Carolina. The complaint says the move was in retaliation against the Puget Sound workers for having previously exercised their federally guaranteed right to strike against Boeing and to prevent these workers from striking in the future.
In a videotaped interview with The Seattle Times, a senior Boeing executive said “the overriding factor” in the company’s decision to move the line wasn’t “the business climate. And it wasn’t the wages we’re paying today.” It was, he said, to avoid strikes. That is illegal. (For more information, check the NLRB’s fact sheet on the complaint against Boeing.)
The complaint set off a barrage of near hysterical criticism from Republicans and the right-wing media. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) went so far as to call the NLRB “thugs” and accused the agency of bullying Boeing.
But the criticism crossed the line to what Reid called “intimidation” when all 10 Republicans on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee signed a letter to the NLRB acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, urging him to drop the complaint and, says Reid, linking their demand to Solomon’s pending nomination as general counsel.
In addition, eight Republican state attorneys general also signed a letter to Solomon calling on him to withdraw the complaint against Boeing.
This kind of interference is inappropriate. It is disgraceful and dangerous. We wouldn’t allow threats to prosecutors or U.S. Attorneys, trying to stop them from moving forward with charges they see fit to bring to the courts. And we shouldn’t stand for this. It may not be illegal, but it’s no better than the retaliation and intimidation that is the fundamental question in this case. It should stop.
Reid also pointed to the deep anti-union bias most Republican lawmakers hold.
We all know Republicans dislike organized labor. We know they disdain unions because unions demand fairness and equality from the Big Businesses Republicans so often shield at all costs.
And let’s be honest: Republicans are threatened by unions. They’re threatened because when a large, organized group is so concerned with workers’ rights, the members of that group vote in large numbers. And because Republicans and the Big Businesses they defend so often try to take away workers’ rights, workers don’t often vote Republican.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) assailed the Republicans’ “disturbing misinformation” campaign against the NLRB and said,
What we are really witnessing here is another example of the Republican assault on the middle class that has been echoing across the country for months now. Just as people are rising up in states across the country to tell governors and other elected leaders not to destroy their rights, we in this body also need to stand up and tell powerful and politically connected corporate CEOs that they are not above our nation’s laws.
Powerful corporate interests are pressuring members of this body to interfere with an independent agency, rather than let justice run its course. And we should not tolerate this interference.
In a remedial civics lesson for Republicans, Reid said that just as there is a system of checks and balances among the three branches of government and the NLRB serves as a check and balance between workers and employers. He also pointed out that the case is far from decided and Republicans should not prejudge the outcome.
We need agencies like the NLRB to be able to operate freely and without political pressures. We need to keep our independent agencies independent. This case is for them to decide, not us.
