Is this how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce shows its gratitude for the Obama administration killing new smog regulation? Or is the calculation that pressure over smog worked, so why not pressure over labor regulations?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a radio ad campaign Monday against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Labor Department for what they call burdensome regulations.
The Chamber is running the ads in four states—Florida, Missouri, Montana, and Virginia. The campaign comes as the House plans to vote this week on legislation that will prohibit the labor board from requiring a company to relocate its employment.
The bill in question takes a backdoor approach to making it easier for companies to retaliate against workers exercising their legal rights. It doesn't make it legal to retaliate in ways such as moving jobs away from a workforce exercising its rights. Instead, it strips the NLRB of the ability to do anything about a company's illegal action.
The House bill is, of course, about the NLRB's case against Boeing. Not content to let the legal process play out, House Republicans want to change the law over a complaint against one company. With President Obama suggesting he might veto, and the Senate unlikely to pass such a law, this is more grandstanding from House Republicans, but it shows just how firmly their allegiances lie with corporations (or corporation) over the ability of federal agencies to uphold the law.
The Chamber's ads, though timed to the House vote, are taking a broader view, aiming more generally at any notion of labor regulation. And why not? Even if Obama stands firm on labor regulations, at this rate by 2017 or whenever we next have a Republican president, House Republicans will have written all the bills needed to roll our workplace protections back to the 19th century.
