Free Republic

For just over a year now and since the failure of the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act (EFCA) to receive a vote in the 111th Congress, union bosses have been desperate to obtain the “payback” they believe is owed to them. Big Labor is beside itself that its membership numbers continue to dwindle despite giving half a billion dollars in campaign contributions to President Obama and Congressional Democrats. In the absence of employees voluntarily choosing to join unions, labor bosses have decided to force them into collective bargaining units in an effort to line their own pockets. More than a year...

A federal judge on Monday struck down new regulations governing union elections, saying the National Labor Relations Board did not follow proper voting procedures when it approved the rules last year. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said the board never had a quorum when it voted on the rules that speed up the pace of union representation elections. He did not address the merits of the rules and said the NLRB could simply take a new vote to approve them. Business groups and Republicans had vigorously challenged the rules, which took effect April 30, claiming they didn't give company managers...

Labor unions, like the United Nations, are all too often judged by what they are envisioned as being — not by what they actually are or what they actually do. Many people, who do not look beyond the vision or the rhetoric to the reality, still think of labor unions as protectors of working people from their employers. And union bosses still employ that kind of rhetoric. However, someone once said, "When I speak I put on a mask, but when I act I must take it off." That mask has been coming off, more and more, especially during...

A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves. The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land. Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”

A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves. The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land. Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.” “Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read,...

Complete title: Consumer Protection Financial Bureau Director Richard Cordray Doubted Constitutionality of His Own Appointment, Documents Uncovered by Judicial Watch Show “There is a chance…that the appointment would be invalidated by a court.” Cordray Told Staff His Short Stint “should give to each one of us…a fierce urgency to accomplish the work we are doing together.” (Washington, DC) –Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that indicate the agency’s director, Richard Cordray, doubted the constitutionality of his own appointment. On January 4, 2012,...

Senate Republicans on Tuesday turned to Miguel Estrada, a man whom Democrats denied a presidential appointment in 2003, to be their lawyer as they fight to overturn some of President Obama’s own appointments. The move escalates the simmering constitutional battle between the Congress and the White House over several appointments Mr. Obama made in January, when the Senate was still meeting every few days and considered itself in session. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said he and his colleagues are filing friend-of-the-court briefs in an ongoing challenge to Mr. Obama’s appointments, and said Mr. Estrada will be their...

A federal court on Tuesday blocked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from issuing a rule that would require employers to post notices explaining workers’ collective bargaining rights. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered that an emergency injunction on the rule be granted, pending appeal. The poster rule was set to go into effect on April 30, but will now be delayed until the appeal is decided. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace asked for the injunction after U.S. District Judge Amy Berman dismissed their legal...

A federal judge ruled Friday that the National Labor Relations Board cannot require millions of private employers to put up posters informing workers of their right to form a union. U.S. District Judge David Norton in South Carolina said the labor board exceeded congressional authority when it approved the poster requirement last year.The decision Friday conflicts with a ruling last month by another federal judge in Washington, D.C., who found the posters were a reasonable means to make workers aware of collective bargaining rights.Both lawsuits were brought business groups that claim the posters are too one-sided in favor of unions....

Today there is no American news outlet factually covering the illegal actions of the sitting President of the United States in context. Nor is there one consistently exposing the laws his administration has flagrantly broken, though this corruption now demonstrably permeates every level of the federal system. Attorneys General Tom Horne, Arizona; Pam Bondi, Florida; Sam Olens, Georgia; Bill Schuette, Michigan; Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma; Marty Jackley, South Dakota; Alan Wilson, South Carolina; Greg Abbott, Texas; and Ken Cuccinelli of Virginia produced a joint memo on March 5th, 2012 detailing 21 blatant violations of law committed by the Obama administration. By...

A federal judge appointed by President Obama has upheld the National Labor Relation Board's power to enforce its ...

Obama’s National Labor Relations Board announced its new Excelsior List, which will continue their assault on the 93% of private-sector employees who are union-free. Now all employees who are targeted for unionization will be forced to turn over their home telephone number and e-mail addresses to unions. This will give union organizers the ability to conduct intrusive home visits prior to the NLRB election.

With private-sector union membership shrinking, organized labor is now seeking counsel from the old adage, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” On Jan. 24, the New York Post reported that “union goons resorted to outrageous tactics to browbeat hotel employees into joining their ranks — going so far as to photograph a female staffer as she changed clothes in an employee locker room, apparently to blackmail her.” Had this been an isolated incident, I might have overlooked it -- but it wasn’t. Each day brings reports of union members intimidating bystanders, destroying property, even storming the doorstep of private residences...

PORTLAND, Ore. (Legal Newsline) - A school bus driver who filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board has obtained a settlement. A condition of the Thursday settlement is that the union officials must ...

PORTLAND, Ore. (Legal Newsline) - A school bus driver who filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board has obtained a settlement. A condition of the Thursday settlement is that the union officials must ...

President Obama rallied with union workers at a Boeing plant in Washington, but he praised the manufacturing conducted by Boeing in South Carolina, even though his National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) tried to close the South Carolina plant at the behest of the Washington union workers. "So this company is a great example of what American manufacturing can do in a way that nobody else in the world can do it," Obama told the assembled workers this afternoon at the Everett, Wash., Boeing plant. "And the impact of your success, as I said, goes beyond the walls of this plant....

Here in Texas we produce a variety of products and services, notably energy, agricultural, and technology related, but also across many sectors (including my own construction industry). We also create and produce jobs. In fact, we do it as well if not better than any other state. Part of the right formula for job creation here in Texas has been lower taxes and less regulations. We have no state income tax and our legislature meets infrequently, denying them opportunity to do much meddling. These simple principles has led many companies to set up in this State, and in return many...

Republican senators announced Friday that they plan to challenge President Obama's recent controversial appointments in court. Thirty-nine GOP senators have signed onto a letter announcing their intention to file a joint amicus brief in a court challenge against Obama's recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board last month. "We refuse to stand by as this President arrogantly casts aside our Constitution and defies the will of the American people under the election-year guise of defending them," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a statement. The White House has argued that the recess appointments...

The chairman of the National Labor Relations Board plans to push for new rules that would give unions a boost in organizing members, despite an outcry from Republicans and business groups who say the board is going too far. Mark Pearce said he hopes the board will propose the rules soon, now that it has a full component of five members. President Barack Obama bypassed the Senate earlier this month to fill three vacancies...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chairman of the National Labor Relations Board says he won't let the controversy over President Barack Obama's recess appointments stop the agency from pressing ahead with changes that could help unions win new members. Mark Pearce tells The Associated Press he will urge the board to approve new rules that would make it easier for unions to establish and win representation elections in workplaces.