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Obama vetoes Republican bid to block union election rules

Reuters

By Daniel Wiessner 2 hours 5 minutes ago

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday vetoed a measure by Republicans in Congress that would have blocked a government labor agency's rules designed to speed up the time it takes to unionize workers.

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The rules would shorten the period between a union filing a petition to represent workers and an election, from the current median of 38 days to as little as 14 days. Employers would be required to share workers' names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses with unions.

The National Labor Relations Board adopted the rules last year and they are set to take effect April 14.

The Senate and House of Representatives, voting along party lines, approved a resolution this month that would have stopped enactment of the rules.

On Tuesday Obama, following through on a threat to reject the resolution, said the rules represented modest changes that would make it easier for workers to unionize.

"Unions historically have been at the forefront of establishing things like the 40-hour work week, the weekend, child labor laws, fair benefits and decent wages," Obama said at a press conference.

The labor board still faces court challenges in Washington, D.C. and Texas over the new process from business groups who say it violates the National Labor Relations Act by not giving employers enough time to prepare for elections.

Rep. John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said in a statement that the new process would only help unions.

"With his veto, the president has endorsed an ambush election rule that will stifle employer free speech, cripple worker free choice, and jeopardize the privacy of working families," Kline said.

The NLRB and Democrats who support the rules say they were designed to rein in misconduct by a minority of employers who draw out the union election process in order to threaten and intimidate workers.

An NLRB spokeswoman declined to comment on Obama's rejection of the resolution.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, N.Y. and Julia Edwards in Washington; Editing by Grant McCool)

Obama Promises Rare Veto As House Votes to Slow Down Union Elections, Curb NLRB

Obama Promises Rare Veto As House Votes to Slow Down Union Elections, Curb NLRB

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17779/obama_promises_rare_veto_as_house_votes_to_slow_down_union_elections_curb_n

BY BRUCE VAIL

The House vote to slow down the union election process was largely symbolic, but one expert emphasizes that how "easily see how this could be signed into law overnight" under a Republican president. (Wikimedia Commons)  

In a show of electoral strength by anti-union Republicans in Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives easily passed legislation Thursday to curb an effort by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to ease procedures for union organizing. Passed by the Senate earlier this month, the measure now heads to the White House, where President Barack Obama has promised a veto.

The NLRB measure passed on a vote of 232-186, with all but three Republicans voting in favor, and all House Democrats voting against. The vote mirrored the partisan divide on labor issues in the Senate, where 53 Republicans voted in favor, with 44 Democrats and just one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voting against the bill.

Republicans pushed the vote forward as an expression of disapproval of steps by the NLRB to ease worker election procedures in union organizing campaigns at private-sector workplaces. The NLRB had announced last year that it will change its procedures to allow many union elections to take place more quickly, leading opponents to dub the change the “ambush rule,” meaning that labor unions would ambush anti-union employers with quick elections. With the promised veto from Obama, the NLRB rule is currently scheduled to go into effect next month.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued the following statement in response to the vote:

Today’s vote by House Republicans against the NLRB’s common-sense modernization of its election rules is a direct attack on workers and their right to be heard in the workplace.

Working men and women want an agenda from their Congressional leaders that raises wages and grows our middle class. Instead, they have gotten Republican policies that roll back progress and silence workers while protecting their biggest donors.

President Obama is right in his commitment to vetoing this harmful legislation, and Congressional Republicans should focus their efforts on lifting workers up instead of shutting them out.

The Congressional vote was “mostly symbolic,” says Ross Eisenbrey, a labor expert at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think thank, because Republicans were aware that Obama intends to  veto the bill and anti-labor legislators lack the necessary votes to override the veto.

“It’s a phony issue, really. Obama will veto it, so it won’t have any real effect,” Eisenbrey tells In These Times.

Nevertheless, the vote does signal problems for the future, he says. “Two years from now, if we have a Scott Walker as president, you can easily see how this could be signed into law overnight. In fact, I think any one of the current Republican candidates for president would be likely to sign something like this, or something even worse,” Eisenbrey comments.

Bill Samuel, Director of Government Affairs at AFL-CIO, says pro-labor groups would have needed about 30 Republican votes in the House to defeat the bill. “That’s a tall order in this Congress,” he says.

Instead of 30 Republican votes, just three Republican House members voted on the side of labor unions. They were Rep. Peter King (New York), Chris Smith (New Jersey) and Frank LoBiondo (New Jersey).

 According to a report in The Hill, strong support for the ant-union legislation came from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation and the National Federation of Independent Business.

“These are the usual suspects,” Eisenbrey says. “They are happy with a system that allows employers to do whatever they want. They hate to give it up.” 

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What is collective bargaining?

What is collective bargaining?

Collective bargaining (also called contract negotiations) is the heart and soul of the labor movement. It is when workers band together to negotiate workplace matters with their employer. The end result is a collective bargaining agreement orcontract that spells out in black and white all of the terms both parties agree to, from pay rates and benefits, to a grievance procedure, time off and more. The employees, or bargaining unit, generally nominate a few of their coworkers to represent them, along with expert negotiators from the union. Once the negotiating team reaches a tentative agreement with management, the bargaining unit meets to vote the contract terms up or down. This is called the ratification process. The contract only goes into effect if a majority of the employees approve the tentative agreement.