The Obama Administration, expecting that we’re in an age where the normal rules of politics apply and not an age of nullification, nominated two labor officials for open slots on the National Labor Relations Board. That board will see previous recess appointments expire at the end of the year, leaving it without a quorum and [...]

I forgot to circle back around to this. In my story yesterday on the settlement in the Boeing/NLRB dispute, I mentioned that the NLRB planned a vote on a scaled-back proposal to speed up union elections and reduce the endless delays and intimidation that has characterized how management handles them. There was some question as [...]

The Machinists union reached tentative agreement on a new four-year contract with Boeing, in a move that probably ends the dispute over moving a factory from Washington State to South Carolina, which prompted action from the NLRB against what they saw as an illegal labor violation: It is not immediately clear what, if any, impact [...]

Sen. Lindsey Graham openly threatened the National Labor Relations Board before they filed a complaint against Boeing for illegally moving their plant from Washington state to South Carolina, according to notes taken by the NLRB’s general counsel, Lafe Solomon. The House Oversight Committee obtained the documents through a subpoena, and they show total intimidation on [...]

The World Trade Organization ruled today that the US legally imposed tariffs on Chinese tire imports last year. These tariffs were imposed in response to a United Steelworkers petition, showing that Chinese firms were dumping substandard tires on US markets, causing “material injury” to the domestic tire industry. This victory at the WTO is a [...]

It’s been a pretty good day for the regulatory state. In addition to the Justice Department’s effort to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, they also held up South Carolina’s new voter ID law, on the grounds that it would disenfranchise voters: In a letter to the attorney general, the voting rights chief asked questions including how [...]

Just to get back to this drive for regulatory reform that you’ll see from the House GOP over the next several months, with spending de-emphasized, take a look at Eric Cantor’s memo on the upcoming agenda from the chamber. About 80% of it concerns repealing “job-destroying regulations,” which suddenly have become the core reason for [...]

I don’t think the President gets enough credit for revitalizing the NLRB. This was an example of Obama doing the right thing without worrying about the political consequences. NLRB commissioners were stuck and the board was unable to operate with less than a quorum. Republicans were holding up the commissioners, including one of their own [...]

I remember a lot of fanfare over this Joan Walsh column, where labor leaders claimed they were “declaring independence” and moving to state and local politics for the purposes of self-preservation. Indeed, some of that has happened. The International Association of Fire Fighters closed their federal PAC. Labor poured a lot of money into the [...]

President Obama was asked today about the decision by the National Labor Relations Board with respect to Boeing, and you can see his answer above. He said that the NLRB is an independent agency and that there’s a pending judicial matter. “So I don’t want to get into the details of the case. I don’t [...]

A new set of rules from the National Labor Relations Board would accelerate union elections and introduce an electronic element into the process. The labor board wants to tighten up the process by ensuring that employers, employees and unions receive needed information sooner and by delaying litigation over many voter-eligibility issues until after workers vote [...]