Free Republic

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is facing a second lawsuit from business groups upset about a controversial rule they contend will unfairly speed up union elections. The business groups are challenging what they refer to as the NLRB's "ambush election" rule. The Texas chapters of the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) and National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) filed the lawsuit late Tuesday in federal court seeking to overturn the rule. "We are proud to join the legal fight against the ambush rule, which is designed to deprive employers, particularly small businesses who typically do not employ legal counsel,...

The National Labor Relations Board is expected in the coming weeks to weigh in on several high-profile labor cases with major implications on workforce and union issues, ranging from college football players to fast food restaurants. Business are bracing for a flurry of action from a labor board they’ve accused of taking on an activist, pro-union agenda. "We’ve seen the board become very active and aggressive under the Obama administration,” said Beth Milito, senior executive counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). One of the most closely watched cases on the labor board’s agenda involves a bid by...

In The Trial, written a century ago in 1914, Franz Kafka paints a portrait of an unimaginably oppressive government with secret laws and trials in which the individual is crushed. Today, in 2014, Kafka would not have to invent these circumstances. He could find them in real life, at the National Labor Relations Board. It’s up to the 114th Congress to keep the NLRB in check.On Friday, just before the holidays, NLRB General Counsel Richard Griffin announced that he had issued complaints against McDonald’s franchised restaurants and McDonald’s USA, the parent corporation, as joint employers.  Workers complained that they...

McDonald’s and its franchisees illegally retaliated against employees for participating in union-related activities, the National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer alleged Friday in a case with sweeping industry implications. NLRB general counsel Richard Griffin announced Friday he will issue 13 complaints involving 78 charges against franchises and McDonald’s USA, LLC. Though many of these alleged labor violations were committed by independent franchise owners, Griffin ruled earlier this year that McDonald’s can be held liable for those actions as a so-called joint employer, leaving the corporatrion — and potentially other franchisors — exposed to such claims. McDonald’s said the decision will...

The National Labor Relations Board issued a final rule on Friday aimed at modernizing and streamlining the union election process. The new rule will shorten the time between when an election is ordered and the election is held, eliminating a previous 25-day waiting period. And it seeks to reduce litigation that can be used to stall elections. It will also require employers to furnish union organizers with email addresses and phone numbers of workers. […] AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the NLRB’s “modest but important reforms” will help reduce delays and make it easier for workers to vote on forming...

Dawn Lafreeda began working at Denny’s when she was 16, making her way up from hostess to waitress. In 1984, at the age of 23, she bought her first store. She now owns over 70. “When I was a kid, I told myself that I was going to be self-employed when I grew up and have a better life and have the things I’d never had,” she told Entrepreneur magazine this past summer. Franchising was Dawn’s ticket to a better life. She’s not alone. Franchising has been a successful business model for Americans wanting to own their own businesses and...

If the Obama Administration has its way, Ronald McDonald may soon have to wipe that grin off his face as he stands beneath the Golden Arches. One of the most successful models for expanding small-business ownership in America is under full-scale attack from unions and the White House. The political strategy is to fundamentally change the legal relationship between locally owned stores like McDonald's (NYSE:MCD), Popeyes (NASDAQ:PLKI), Taco Bell (NYSE:YUM) and their multibillion-dollar parent companies. No longer would franchisees be legally classified as independent contractors to the parent company. The left wants the employees of each of the hundreds of...

Labor Day provides the opportunity to evaluate those government agencies that impact the workplace, and gauge if they are helping or hurting the employment situation in America. In the six Labor Days since President Obama took office, his appointees have gone to outrageous lengths to compel the 93 percent of the private-sector workforce who don't belong to an organized labor union to become dues-paying members. While the Labor Department and the National Mediation Board have each pushed hard to create rules that overwhelmingly favor union organizers over those employees who oppose unionization, it is the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)...

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) made a very strange decision last week to rule that McDonald's MCD -0.23% the corporation, was a joint employer of the staff in the franchised restaurants. It was, of course, at the urging of those labour activists who would like to union organise in the sector. Dealing with one national company is obviously going to be easier than dealing with thousands of independent business owners. There’s a number of problems with this decision ranging from the way that it overturns what has long thought to be settled law, to it obviating already signed contracts...

Would you like to own a small business someday? If so, sorry — the Service Employees International Union would rather you didn’t. SEIU has convinced the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to eviscerate the franchising model that many small-business owners rely on. Under the current model, these small-business owners pay for the right to use a corporate brand. The franchising corporation researches appealing products. It also does marketing to promote the brand. In return, the local franchisees agree to produce those products to fit certain price and quality specifications. The local franchisee handles all the hiring and employment. This division...

Another day, another radical move from the Obama administration. In a big win for the more opportunistic corners of the organized-labor movement, the National Labor Relations Board decided this week that, in a range of labor cases involving McDonald’s, it will consider the corporate parents of franchise businesses liable for the labor agreements reached between franchises and their employees. The NLRB has maintained otherwise for 30 years, refusing to consider corporations with franchises to be part of a “joint employer” arrangement. Why decide that corporations are employers of employees whom they don’t hire, don’t pay, and can’t fire? Because the...

Once again, one man has dictated a major change of federal law that can cost American families dearly. It may double the price of your Big Mac, Whopper, fried chicken, donuts or other purchases at your local fast-food restaurant. Where’s the beef coming from? Surprise! This time it’s neither President Obama nor Attorney General Eric Holder who is twisting the law like a pretzel from Auntie Anne’s. It’s Obama appointee Richard Griffin, the president’s hand-picked choice for the all-powerful position as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mr. Griffin has declared that millions of Americans who work...

resident Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has showed itself once again to be a strident advocate for the interests of Big Labor bosses, ready to stand up for union interests even in the face of common sense. This week, the NLRB ruled that cosmetics workers at a Macy’s store in Saugus, Massachusetts, were allowed to form a collective bargaining unit for their department alone – what’s known as a “micro-union.” Of course, the three-to-one decision was split along strictly partisan lines. The three Democrats on the Board sided with the United Food & Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), representing the...

The efforts of Northwestern University’s scholarship football players to unionize could have profound implications for the future of college education. northwestern university football According to the Associated Press, Northwestern University just filed a 60-page brief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C. This comes after a regional director of the NLRB ruled this past spring that “football players who receive full scholarships to the Big Ten school qualify as employees under federal law and therefore can unionize.” If the decision of the regional director is upheld, the framework between the players and the university would be redefined...

If you paid close attention this week, you could see the sand shifting under Obama’s feet. From public opinion to the federal courts to the president’s former putative allies, it was not a good week to be Obama, and it’s likely to get worse for him. Walkabouts in D.C., travels to distant fundraisers, preposterous flailing on the international scene, and more shots with his cute kids are not going to change the situation as far as I can tell. Yet he lacks other options. 1. Hard Drives are Crashing all over the Place This week, the efforts to push the...

Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling that President Obama’s “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional could mean as many as 800 cases decided by the illegal appointees would have to be reconsidered. The Court ruled three appointments President Obama made on Jan. 4, 2012, to fill out the five-member National Labor Relations Board, were improper because the Senate was not, in fact, in recess. That means the NLRB did not have a quorum, as required by law, when it ruled on hundreds of cases from the time they were appointed until August 2013, when other nominees were properly...

Back in 2011, Sens. David Vitter, R-La, and Jim DeMint, R-S.C. organized a letter from 20 GOP senators urging House Speaker John Boehner to block any resolution allowing the Senate to recess for more than three days. Vitter was upfront about his rationale. He wanted to block Democratic President Barack Obama from making recess appointments when the Senate was recessed. And Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously, in effect, that the strategy outlined by Vitter and DeMint was valid -- that the Senate really wasn't in recess when the president used his recess appointment authority to name three members to...

The Supreme Court ruling on Thursday that invalidated three appointments made by President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board has thrown hundreds of the board's decisions into question. The board that rules on labor disputes is now scrambling to determine the impact of the high court decision. At issue is whether board decisions made when the now-invalid appointees were participating will have to be re-decided under the current NLRB.

Three cheers for right-wing obstructionism. Can we have more, please, and louder? This week's unanimous Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's illegal recess appointments is a double smackdown. First, it's a rebuke against arrogant White House power-grabbers who thought they could act with absolute impunity and interminable immunity. Second, the ruling is a reproach of all the establishment pushovers on Capitol Hill who put comity above constitutional principle. In a nutshell: The high court determined that Obama lawlessly exceeded his executive authority when he foisted three members onto the National Labor Relations Board in 2012, during what Democrats declared was...

Two and one-half years ago in 2012, Obama tried to slip-in appointments to the National Labor Relations Board without the constitutionally required Senate approval, claiming he had the right to do so because the Senate was in recess. There’s only one problem. The Senate was not in formal recess when Obama made the dictatorial appointments. Now the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in a unanimous 9-0 decision that Obama doesn’t get to define when the U.S. Senate is in recess, the Senate does. This is the first time in U.S. history that the Constitution’s recess appointment clause...