Board Chairman Jan. 2009 – present
Board Member 1997 – present
Term Expires August 2011
Democrat

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No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing
New findings from Dr. Kate Bronfenbrenner provide a comprehensive, independent analysis of employer behavior in union representation elections supervised by the NLRB. Her research identifies the range and incidence of legal and illegal coercive tactics used by employers NLRB elections and the ineffectiveness of current labor law to protect and enforce workers’ rights during the process.

Out of Control: Employer Misconduct During Union Organizing Far Too Common
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections are meant to provide workers with the opportunity to choose whether or not they want to join a union. Yet research confirms that too many employers are taking advantage of U.S. labor laws intended to protect workers’ rights to form unions. Aggressive misconduct from management widely prevents workers from exercising their choice. These findings indicate a serious need for reform of the NLRB-supervised union election process which typically skews in the favor of employers.

NLRB's Fired Workers Only Tip of the Iceberg
Workers who are fired for their support of a union discover incredible obstacles in attempts to reclaim their jobs due to a weak labor law system that favors employers. The workers who end up with an official ruling in their favor from the NLRB represent only the tip of the iceberg of the thousands of workers fired each year for supporting a union. Rather than navigate a long and difficult process, too many fired workers end their pursuit of justice, however minimal, from the NLRB.

The Chilling Effect: Fire One Worker, Send a Powerful Message to the Rest
It is well-established that employers illegally fire workers for their support of a union in the United States. But what people may not realize is that for every worker fired, 395 coworkers receive the message: get involved with the union and you’ll get a pink slip. Looking at how many workers, on average, in a workplace observe someone being fired for supporting a union reveals the real impact beyond the individual worker—it can chill support for a union by instilling fear among coworkers that they too could lose their livelihood and economic well-being.

The Inadequate Costs of Labor Law Violations
Other major federal employment laws impose fines or damages on employers who break the law. Yet the NLRA’s nominal deterrents do little to prevent employer lawlessness compared to the costs of violating minimum wage, discrimination, and health and safety protections.

Most of us are aware of the government agencies that were created to better our quality of life: the EPA to keep our air and water clean, OSHA to make our workplaces safe, the FDA to ensure the safety of our medicine. But one acronym you're not likely to know is the NLRB—the National Labor Relations Board. This independent federal agency is charged with enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935. The agency is responsible for protecting workers' rights to organize and form unions, and remedying unfair labor practices from employers and unions alike.

The NLRB administers and enforces provisions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).  This federal law, signed in 1935, regulates relations between unions, employees, and employers in the private sector.  According to the NLRA, "encouraging the practice and procedures of collective bargaining” is the policy of the United States." It provides that if workers decide to form a union, the union and employer are required to engage in good faith negotiations to establish terms and conditions of employment.

With President Barack Obama’s nominees defeated, America’s workers continue to pay the cost. The board will continue to hobble along as it has for the past two years. Stuck with just two members, every critical case at the national level is frozen…This means that millions of workers who saw their right to form a union revoked by the Bush board — like the nurses and professionals wrongly labeled as supervisors — must continue to work without job security and a voice to improve their working conditions.

As a mother I’ve learned that regardless of his repeated assurances, my toddler will only stop harassing his little brother when there are real consequences to his misbehavior (i.e., no more train video). Yet when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) charged Consolidated Biscuit with illegally harassing its union supporters–despite the company’s pledge to stop in two previous settlements—the agency didn’t provide any real consequences.

Rather than pursuing an injunction and contempt-of-court charges against the company to prevent further violations, they decided to negotiate yet another settlement. This milquetoast response to a habitual unionbuster illustrates why we need the Employee Free Choice Act, which would increase penalties for unlawful employers, and require the use of injunctions to curb employers’ bad behavior when there’s reasonable cause to believe that someone’s rights have been violated.

Two contradicting court decisions issued last week leave the National Labor Relations Board in legal limbo.  For the past 16 months, Wilma Liebman and Peter Schaumber have jointly issued 400 decisions, preventing a major backlog of cases while the Board was down by three members.  Yet the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington just held that it was invalid for them to issue two-member decisions, while a federal appellate court in Chicago upheld the validity of their decisions.  It will likely take a Supreme Court decision to clear up the legal matter.

It is all the more imperative now that the Senate swiftly confirm President Obama’s nominees for two vacant Board seats. If the Board is forced to re-examine all of those cases when another member is appointed, it must do so quickly in order to minimize the damage done to workers.  Behind each of those cases are real people who are waiting for their union to be recognized, waiting for their employer to come to the bargaining table, and waiting to collect backpay for a wrongful termination.

The National Labor Relations Board may once again be a worker-friendly agency which actually fulfills its mission to promote democracy in the workplace. 

President Obama has announced that he is appointing Craig Becker and Mark Pearce to fill two open vacancies on the Labor Board.  Both men have a history of advocating on behalf of workers and for reforming labor law through direct legal work and in academic posts.  If confirmed, they will join Chair Wilma Liebman and Member Schaumber, with one vacancy remaining.

For more info, check out the American Prospect.

If I were a scurrilous lawyer advising a new employer on federal employment laws, I would tell them not to worry about violating the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). When an employer violates any of the three major federal employment laws covering minimum wage, discrimination, or safety, they must at least pay fines or damages. Yet there are no penalties assessed on employers who commit unfair labor practices under the NLRA. Check out this new chart released by American Rights at Work, which illustrates just how poorly the costs of violating labor law compare with the costs of violating other employment laws:

According to new numbers released by American Rights at Work, 33.5 million people—24% of the workforce—have no legally-protected right to form a union. This is an embarrassing number for an advanced democracy like ours. As a Human Rights Watch report noted, large exclusions of workers from the protections of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) “run counter to international human rights standards compelling broad protection of workers' freedom of association.”

Why are so many workers without the right to organize? The NLRA excludes several classes of workers, including public employees, agricultural workers, and independent contractors, and many states have failed to pass laws extending coverage to these employees. Additionally, decisions by the Bush Labor Board have excluded employees with minimal supervisory duties, disabled janitors, graduate student assistants, newspaper carriers, and other categories of workers from the law’s protections. And employers are increasingly misclassifying their employees as independent contractors, denying them the right to form unions and gain other employment law protections.

A friendly reminder to staff of the National Labor Relations Board: your agency exists to protect the interests of workers—not the employers who break the law. I’m compelled to bring this up because of the recent actions taken by a regional NLRB office to settle a complaint against an employer without any input from the nurses who brought the charges.

In May of this year, nurses at Legacy Hospital in Portland, OR, filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB, alleging their employer illegally barred nurses from discussing the union in all areas of the worksite, and called in security to escort nurses off the property for engaging in union activity. On September 30, the NLRB issued a complaint charging the company with illegally suppressing union activity, and scheduled a hearing for October.*

Yet without consulting with the nurses, the NLRB canceled the hearing and settled the charges with the hospital, which simply agreed to post a notice describing the nurses’ rights under the law. None of the nurses’ concerns were addressed.