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The Republican war on unions continues apace. On a near-party-line vote Wednesday, the House passed a bill crafted to thwart a National Labor Relations Board decision, made earlier Wednesday, that would entitle workers to a timely vote on unionization once they’ve petitioned for it. By ruling that employers’ legal challenges can be entertained only after a vote, the board effectively denied employers the ability to hold up a vote for weeks, months or even years. Elections delayed, the NLRB essentially said, are elections denied.

The House legislation, by contrast, stipulated that such legal challenges can go forward before the vote. The bill will almost surely go nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but then, it’s just one foray in the Republicans’ battle to extirpate worker-controlled organizations in America.

In the run-up to Wednesday’s NLRB vote, there was considerable doubt as to whether a vote could even be held. The five-seat board is down to three members. Republicans have vowed not to confirm any more of President Obama’s appointees, and the Supreme Court ruled last year that if the board’s membership fell to just two, it would no longer have the power to issue rulings. In recent weeks a number of Republicans have urged the board’s remaining GOP member, Brian Hayes, to resign, stripping the board of its rule-setting ability. After NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce scaled back the proposed reform, Hayes decided to stay on, though he did vote against Pearce’s modified proposal.

Also Wednesday, one ostensible casus belli for the GOP war on the board was removed when Boeing and the Machinists Union agreed on a new contract, under which the company committed to expand production at its unionized Washington-state factories. In return, the union agreed to drop its complaint to the NLRB against Boeing’s new factory in non-union South Carolina. When the NLRB’s general counsel took up the case, Republicans pounced: The board, they said, was threatening to kill jobs. This week, the general counsel indicated that if the machinists dropped the case, so would he. (more…)

Professors from Western Michigan University discuss the devastating effects — including lower wages and higher poverty — of so-called “Right to Work” laws.

This has been quite a week in the business of sports. Club owners in baseball and basketball have settled their labor disputes with the unions representing their players through the arduous process of collective bargaining. While the parties in baseball were expected to reach an agreement, their history of failed negotiations makes that an uncertain proposition each time a collective bargaining agreement expires. The parties in basketball have been through a painful set of negotiations, and, in one last attempt to save their season, they reached a tentative pact.

Collective bargaining is a frustrating experience both for the participants and the fans of sports. I am sure there are days when club owners wish — as many employers do — that their employees would just toss out the union and come back to work at the generous salaries the clubs offer. Many of these owners made their riches running non-union businesses and enjoyed a full measure of managerial discretion. In team sports, however, the owners need the unions. Unless embodied in a collective bargaining agreement, many of the rules needed to operate a team sport would constitute antitrust violations, something the owners must avoid.

The NBA negotiations demonstrated how complicated bargaining can be when you have dozens of owners on one side of the table. The owners’ interests were not congruent. Some wanted a “big win” over the union which would then allow them to market their franchises at a better price. Others just wanted to play the game. Each game missed meant a significant loss of revenue. It was David Stern’s job to try to cobble together a majority out of this mix, not an easy task.

The NBA players also have divergent interests. Players with high salaries and long-term contracts do not share the concerns of marginal players on ten-day contracts. The Players Association seemed to be able to bridge these differences until it needed to call the NBA’s bluff and move towards decertification and antitrust litigation. (more…)

From a midnight pajama party in a Madison bar to a rally in front of Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) Wauwatosa home, thousands of Wisconsin volunteers kicked off the official signature gathering period to put Walker’s recall before the voters next year. Recall forces now have 60 days to gather some 540,000 signatures.

At the pajama party, where participants were set for action at this morning’s official 12:01 a.m. start of the signature gathering clock, Erik Kirkstein a spokesman for United Wisconsin told the Badger Herald:

The people of Wisconsin have been waiting for this for months. This is the culmination of citizens all across the state, and we can’t wait to recognize them and start [the recall] off on the right track.

The broad recall coalition, which includes the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, brings together the same citizen energy that fueled working families’ win in Ohio last week. By an overwhelming 61 percent margin, voters overturned Gov. John Kasich’s S.B. 5, which eliminated the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

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From a midnight pajama party in a Madison bar to a rally in front of Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) Wauwatosa home, thousands of Wisconsin volunteers kicked off the official signature gathering period to put Walker’s recall before the voters next year. Recall forces now have 60 days to gather some 540,000 signatures.

At the pajama party, where participants were set for action at this morning’s official 12:01 a.m. start of the signature gathering clock, Erik Kirkstein, a spokesman for United Wisconsin, told The Badger Herald:

The people of Wisconsin have been waiting for this for months. This is the culmination of citizens all across the state, and we can’t wait to recognize them and start [the recall] off on the right track.

The broad recall coalition, which includes the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, brings together the same citizen energy that fueled working families’ win in Ohio last week. By an overwhelming 61 percent margin, voters overturned Gov. John Kasich’s S.B. 5, which eliminated the collective bargaining rights of public employees. (more…)

On Nov. 8, Ohio voters repealed SB5, which took away the right of public employees to bargain for a middle-class life. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined working families at the phone bank and walking door to door to get-out-the-vote against the law, pushed by Gov. John Kasich and passed early in 2011.

On Nov. 8, Ohio voters repealed SB5, which took away the right of public employees to bargain for a middle-class life. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined working families at the phone bank and walking door to door to get-out-the-vote against the law, pushed by Gov. John Kasich and passed early in 2011.

Earlier this year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposed some modest rule changes to streamline and modernize the way union elections are conducted. While those rules are still under review, Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee today approved a bill that would add months- or years-long delays to union elections.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) says the Republican bill (H.R. 3094) would “encourage employers to spend thousands of dollars on attorneys to file frivolous appeals to gum up the election process.”

The bill’s clear intention is to wear down workers so that they give up fighting for a better deal.

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Governors like Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey have justified their attacks on public workers and their unions as necessary to balance state budgets. Indeed, they and copy-cat officials, mainly Republican but frequently Democratic, and a hallelujah chorus of pundits have insinuated that a bloated, overpaid state and local government workforce caused the record string of deficits over the past four years.

It’s a good story, conveniently reinforcing right-wing hostility to government. But there’s one little problem. It’s dead wrong. The facts simply don’t support it. That shortcoming may not stop the right-wing crusade, but it’s important for anyone concerned about state and local government to know.

And they can find the research neatly, graphically summarized in “The Wrong Target: Public Sector Unions and State Budget Deficits,” by Sylvia Allegretto, Ken Jacobs and Laurel Lucia of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics and the Labor Center, both at the University of California, Berkeley.

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During the recent People’s Road Trip across Ohio, workers of all stripes from all parts of the state sounded off about how Issue 2 is unsafe, unfair, and hurts all our communities.