NLRB: Gridlock!

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is in gridlock. Established to ensure fairness and resolve labor/management disputes in the workplace, it has become just another dysfunctional “political football.”  That’s because of a partisan stalemate, hatched by Republican stalwarts, over filling three vacant NLRB seats.

Only two seats are currently occupied, one member each from both major political parties. Federal court decisions are divided as to whether that constitutes a legal quorum.

President George W. Bush had stacked the NLRB with five members, all of whom had passed the Republican litmus test of being rabidly hostile to workers’ rights. Now that a relatively pro-Labor administration has been voted in with the blessing of the electorate, the Grand Old Party (a name that lends itself to its own perfect ridicule) is obstructing efforts to allow the NLRB to be viable again.

Last August President Obama nominated three new members, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in cahoots with the Republicans who have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the altar of decency while fighting tooth and nail against every minimum wage increase, social security benefit and other enlightened idea, have stalled it.

Despite the deadlock, the NLRB continues to do business settling straightforward disputes. But the more complex and consequential ones are snared in indefinite delay.

The feet of the GOP, for a start, need to be put to the fire.

Tagged: Bush, NLRB, Obama

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