Wilma Liebman (House Education and Labor Committee)
Under George W. Bush, the National Labor Relations Board took away the right of graduate students working as
teaching or research assistants to organize. It reclassified millions of workers as
supervisors ineligible to organize though their supervisory authority was extremely limited. It limited the back pay
illegally fired workers could get.
Under Barack Obama, the National Labor Relations Board has opened the door to renewed organizing by graduate assistants. It has proposed a rule to streamline union representation elections and reduce frivolous litigation. It filed a complaint for moving work in retaliation for workers exercising their rights against an employer whose executives said it moved worked in retaliation for workers exercising their rights. It has required employers to put up posters informing workers of their legal rights under the National Labor Relations Act.
Guess which administration's NLRB has drawn screamed accusations of radicalism.
Steven Greenhouse reports that Wilma Liebman, the outgoing chair of the NLRB, says:
"The criticism is grossly out of proportion to what has happened and what has been done," said Ms. Liebman, who was first appointed to the board by President Bill Clinton in 1997. "We knew we were going to have a boxing match, but we didn’t expect our opponents to come in with a baseball bat."
While the naivete of not expecting today's Republican party to come in with a baseball bat is startling to observers of today's Republican party, this is the perspective of someone with nearly 14 years on the NLRB. She'd be in a position to know if things had changed.
Liebman's departure comes at the end of her appointed term and leaves the board in imminent trouble:
Generally considered an independent agency, the board typically has five members, who are appointed by the president, although with Ms. Liebman’s departure, the board will be down to three members. On Saturday, the Obama administration announced that the president had designated a current member, Mark Pearce, as the new chairman.
After Craig Becker’s appointment expires in December, the board will shrink to two members. If Republicans follow through on their threat not to confirm any Democratic nominees, the board will be largely paralyzed because it cannot legally make decisions with just two members, a situation it endured for 26 months beginning in 2008 when both parties blocked each other’s nominees.
But, you know, by paralyzing government agencies, at least we can avoid outrages like employers having to post one more sign informing employees of their rights.