NEWS FLASH

The Right’s War on Workers: NLRB Edition | Dahlia Lithwick has a must-read piece explaining why congressional Republicans’ efforts to discredit the National Labor Relations Board is a direct assault on the due process of law:

The complaint filed by the NLRB contends that Boeing moved some of its operations from union-friendly Washington to “right to work” South Carolina. (In right-to-work states, workers cannot be required as a condition of employment to pay dues or fees to a union, even though the union provides services to all the workers in the form of negotiating and administering a collective-bargaining agreement.) The claim here was that operations were moved to retaliate for strikes by Washington state workers. It’s a tough claim to prove, but it’s not an outlandish one by any means. As the NLRB points out here, there is ample precedent for the argument that threatening to move facilities because of strikes is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. And certainly the NLRB might reasonably have taken a Boeing executive at his word when he told the Seattle Times (on video!) that this was precisely what motivated the relocation. [...]

[House Oversight Chair Darrell] Issa has made no secret of the fact that he would merrily close down the NLRB if it doesn’t run its independent agency his way. He’s hardly alone. In February, congressional Republicans tried to pass an amendment to defund the NLRB. (They ended up merely slashing the budget.) Then in May, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., put forward legislation to defund the Boeing complaint. That makes about as much sense as putting forward a bill to defund Citizens United.

Read the whole thing here.