Overt bias at federal labor agency

Attorneys from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation have obtained internal National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that reveal extraordinary bias in NLRB processing of complaints related to the illegal seizure of compulsory union dues, according to a US Newswire article from Washington.

“In cases pending on the NLRB docket and awaiting decision for up to seven years, the FOIA-acquired documents reveal that six out of the 10 longest pending cases involve employees attempting to reclaim compulsory union dues used for political activities.

“Under the Supreme Court’s 1988 ruling in Communication Workers vs. Beck, a case brought by employees with help from the National Right to Work Foundation, employees may not be forced to pay for any union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, contract negotiation, or grievance adjustment. However, since union officials have notoriously violated this law, enforcement by the NLRB is required.

“Beck cases comprise an estimated two percent of all the cases the NLRB processes each year. Yet NLRB officials have provided no explanation for the extraordinary delays in issuance of this single class of case. In at least one case, an employee has died during the long wait for justice.

“The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently cited the unfazed NLRB for ‘standing’ out as a federal administrative agency which has been rebuked before for what must strike anyone as a cavalier disdain for the hardship it is causing.

“There’s no doubt that Bill Clinton’s hand-picked NLRB is helping union officials fill their political coffers with cash skimmed from the wages of millions of Americans,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “No other class of case has been singled out by NLRB bureaucrats for this unconscionable dilatory behavior”.

“In the 1988 elections, organized labor spent an estimated $500 million out of union treasury dues for partisan political activities. Most of this money was collected from employees as a condition for employment. Polls show that 62 percent of the AFL-CIO members oppose the use of their compulsory union dues for political activities.

“To force the NLRB to abandon its apparently deliberate practice of stonewalling these cases, Foundation attorneys recently filed three writ of mandamus petitions with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, requesting an order that would compel the NLRB to take action on the six-year-old cases of David and Sherry Firlott of Green Bay, Robert Mohat of Cincinnati, and Richard Ohse of Oklahoma City.

“A writ of mandamus, from Latin meaning “we command” would compel the recalcitrant federal labor board to issue a decision in this case. A mandamus action is extremely unusual.

“Moreover, in a 1997 letter to the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, former NLRB Chairman William Gould remarked that ‘there’s no valid or acceptable reason for cases to be delayed at the Board for so long.”

“Since union officials prefer the status quo in these compulsory union dues cases, the NLRB is bending over backward to block issuance of rulings and thereby allow the ongoing seizure of forced dues for Big Labor’s political agenda, said Gleason.”

This issue confirms President Clinton acquiescing the role of recalcitrant NLRB in cases involving compulsory dues. For all we know, the triad: Clinton and Pinto Boys, detractors in the US House of Representatives and labor unions must have been eating out of the same plate to frustrate the NMI’s apparel industry. No wonder the controversy turning into an ugly exchange what with a war chest of $500 million. Has anybody seen the Pinto Boys who must have been doing the mea culpa right in the deep pockets of labor unions asking how high must they jump? No wonder too the purposeful ruination of the local economy via discriminatory exclusion of the NMI in our mother country’s “economic good times”.