BY David Moberg

– On Thursday, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that President Obama overstepped the limits of his power in January 2012 when he appointed three members to the National Labor Relations Board during a Senate recess.

As part of their strategy to stymie all administrative initiatives, Senate Republicans had previously blocked consideration of Obama’s nominations, leaving the formally five-member NLRB—the principal enforcer of federal labor laws—without the majority it needed to function. Obama responded by appointing three new board members during the holiday recess, circumventing the Republican minority’s hindrance of the Senate approval process and the president’s appointment powers.

After losing a case before the NLRB in 2012, Noel Canning, a Pepsi-Cola bottler in Washington state, challenged the validity of the recess appointments; in January 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit determined those appointments were indeed illegal. At the time, union leaders were outraged that the appellate court’s decision had effectively granted a Republican minority in the Senate the power to shut down the principal government agency protecting workers’ rights to organize. The Obama administration appealed the decision to the Supreme Court; in the meantime, the NLRB continued to operate.

When the Supreme Court decided on Thursday that Obama’s 2012 actions had exceeded his authority, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka responded with an even-tempered observation: Republican obstructionism had forced the president to act, and now the country’s highest court had simply “cleared up the legal landscape on a question both Democratic and Republican presidents have faced for decades.” Most importantly for labor in the short run, the current NLRB members were approved last year through the standard appointment process—meaning the board can continue its work unimpeded for now.

The five-justice moderate majority, led by Justice Stephen Breyer, reaffirmed the longstanding power of the president to make appointments during a recess without Senate approval. However, they clarified that recesses had to be at least 10 days long for him to do so—and the party in control could design the recess as a series of short breaks punctuated by “pro forma” sessions, as Republicans did in 2012 to try to hinder the nominations. The justices also decided that a recess could be between the two sessions of each Congress chamber or within a session.

The four justices on the Right, whose dissenting opinion was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, would have much more greatly restricted presidential recess appointments. In general, Republicans have portrayed Obama as an extreme abuser of presidential power and privilege, even though he has made far fewer recess appointments than any of his four immediate predecessors. For example, Ronald Reagan made 232 such appointments in his presidency; so far, Obama has made just 32.

Although the Supreme Court’s decision tilts slightly toward the executive branch, which could now be considered moderately pro-labor, the battle for political power looms as large as ever on the organizing landscape. Democrats finally changed Senate rules in November 2013 to prevent minority filibusters from blocking executive branch appointments. As a result, Obama should not need to use recess appointments at all to get around minority Republican intransigence. But Thursday’s decision still gives a determined opposition party power to limit recess lengths if it controls the House or Senate. Given that each chamber is involved in setting the recess of the other, this could cause complications for Obama should Republicans take the reins in either of them.

For that matter, if the Republicans win the Senate this fall, they could reject all of Obama’s appointments outright. And although all five members of the NLRB will remain in office, having been approved through standard, non-recess procedures, the term of former union lawyer Nancy Schiffer ends in December—barely giving Obama and Senate Democrats time to approve a successor if such a scenario arises.

And though the decision temporarily works in favor of the labor movement, the fallout from the legal battle could disrupt and slow the work of the NLRB. Employers have challenged roughly 100 NLRB decisions made by the board members who had been appointed during the 2012 recess. If most of those employers continue to contest those cases rather than settle, the current NLRB will have to revisit them.

Given the NLRB’s track record, this could take quite some time: After a federal court ruled in 2010 that the Board had to have a three-person majority vote to decide cases, it took nearly three years for it to review about 100 disputed decisions, according to NLRB spokesperson Gregory King. That experience suggests that the NLRB could be tied up for many of the coming months revisiting cases from January 2012 to August 2013, which would interfere with its pressing new work.

In the end, it seems neither side in the legal battle had much to celebrate. Even as the White House criticized the decision, Forbes headlined its story, “Obama Loses on NLRB Recess Appointments, But Employers Unlikely to Win.” The Democratic majority now in place on the NLRB is indeed likely to rule much the same way as the one made through recess appointments—so a “loss” for employers will be a victory for many workers.

But many unions note that the decision does not resolve serious issues about democratic practice in Congress, particularly the Senate rules on debate and filibuster. As the Communications Workers of America stated in reaction to Thursday’s decision, “The Senate’s constitutional duty is to review the president’s nominees through ‘advice and consent’—not use parliamentary tricks to impede his policy agenda,” as the Republicans had done with the fight over recess appointments.

It is fitting that this legal fight over democracy and the appointments process revolved around an agency devoted to workers’ rights, given that the deepest challenge to democracy comes from the ways in which a plutocratic minority can manipulate the political system in ways that maintain its power at the expense of a working-class and middle-class majority. However, the Supreme Court, whatever its actions on recess appointments, is unlikely to be the venue where that more profound question is answered.

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/16886/what_the_supreme_courts_noel_canning_decision_means_for_labor

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– President Bloomingdale and Secretary-Treasurer Snyder are helping kick-off a new innovative educational experience at Penn State University this week designed to help emerging union leaders further develop their skills to meet the future challenges.

The start of the Labor Leadership Institute begins at the Main Campus of Penn State University in State College, PA with an intensive four days of workshops and training sessions. Upon completion of these sessions, participants will be attending a series of three, two-day seminars during the year, and will graduate at the conclusion of the second four day seminar to be held next May.

The Penn State University School of Labor and Employment Relations and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO are the co-sponsors of the Labor Leadership Training Institutes. The program is based upon a series of in-depth discussions with top officers from Pennsylvania’s leading unions. These discussions identified specific challenges facing labor unions in Pennsylvania and are incorporated into the training curriculum. The Leadership Training Institute is modeled after the successful Cornell University/NY State AFL-CIO Union Leadership Institute, which is one of the top advanced union leadership programs in the country.

President Bloomingdale and Secretary-Treasurer Snyder express their appreciation and gratitude to the leadership of all of the unions who participated in the discussions and the development of the curriculums. “Without the time and the valuable insight provided by Vice Presidents and our affiliates we would not have a program that is relevant and valuable to emerging leaders here in our State,” President Bloomingdale said.

President Bloomingdale and Secretary-Treasurer Snyder also expressed their thanks and appreciation to the dedication and efforts of Dr. Paul Clark, Professor and Director of the School of Labor and Employment Relations; Doug Allen, Professor of Practice of the School of labor and Employment Relations; and Stu Bass, Director of Keystone Development Partners. They are playing instrumental roles in not only bringing all of the pieces together, but also in helping conduct the workshops and training.

“We believe that this institute will help instill the spirit of organizing to create the culture of change needed to build and grow our unions and the labor movement for a better future for our unions, and for all of Pennsylvania’s working families,” Secretary-Treasurer Snyder said.

Another key to the success of the learning experience is diversity of union leadership and unions whom are participating in the program, including representatives from the building trades, industrial, service, and professional unions. Enrollment and diversity goals have been met for the 2014-2015 training programs.

To learn more about the Pennsylvania Labor Leadership Institute please visit their website at http://ler.la.psu.edu/lli.shtml.

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4238

**Contact your State Rep and demand that they oppose this bill that is clearly out to weaken our Unions and Pennsylvania Working Families!**

HARRISBURG — Paycheck protection could move to the House floor this week a midst dragging budget negotiations frayed by Gov. Tom Corbett’s pension ultimatum. Whether the bill will get on to the full chamber’s agenda before lawmakers recess for the summer remains unclear.

The House State Government Committee called a last-minute off-the-floor meeting on Monday to vet House Bill 1507 — which would ban unions from using automatic paycheck deductions to collect dues — and a proposed amendment that would clarify definitions within the legislation and allow payroll deductions for fair share contributions.

Democratic committee members failed twice to table both votes and sparred with their GOP counterparts over the legitimacy of the bill and the “inappropriate” way in which Monday’s meeting was organized.

“Let’s tell the truth and call this legislation what it is,” said Rep. Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, just before voting against the bill. “This is not about protecting taxpayer’s money … it is clearly about union busting.”

Committee Democrats piled on top of Harris’s comment, each attacking the bill for “singling out” unions and ignoring other payroll-deducted contributions, such as for insurance companies, who they say also use the money for lobbying.

Committee Republicans rebuffed the fervor with a “common sense, right-versus-wrong” mantra.
“I think this a very simple matter,” said Rep. Brad Roae, R-Crawford. “It’s an easy vote. I don’t understand what all the controversy is about. It’s always wrong to use local property tax money to pay school district employees to collect political campaign money. The unions are the only ones allowed to do it. It’s always wrong. We have former legislators that went to prison because they were using tax money for campaign purposes. Political campaign money and taxpayer money are two totally unrelated pots of money.”

The amendment passed on a vote of 14-9 and the bill passed on a vote of 14-10.

Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, said Monday the bill had been sent to the House Rules Committee, but offered no further insight into its future.

By Tim Koechlin

– Across the country, Republican legislatures — encouraged and financed, as usual, by corporate money and right wing think tanks — have undertaken a stunning array of initiatives designed to weaken unions and otherwise undermine American workers. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, along with several other Republican governors, has moved aggressively and conspicuously to disempower public sector unions. Nikki Haley, the Republican Governor of South Carolina, recently declared that unionized businesses are not welcome in South Carolina.

Republicans tell a tired, cynical story about all of this, insisting that union busting is, somehow, good for the economy and good for workers. It’s the same old trickle down nonsense.

Democrats, on the other hand, have done too little to defend unions and worker rights.

This systematic attack on unions is, of course, bad for working Americans. Unionized workers in the U.S. earn more money than non-union workers with similar skills (14 percent more, according to the Economic Policy Institute). Unionized workers are 28 percent more likely to have employer provided health insurance and 54 percent more likely to have employer provided pensions. Unionized workers enjoy more vacation time, and they are more productive than non-union workers. Countries with high rates of union coverage enjoy lower rates of inequality and lower rates of poverty, and their workers enjoy greater economic security. And, further, a robust union movement raises pay and working conditions for non-union workers as well.

What’s not to like?

In 1973, 27 percent of U.S. workers were unionized. Now, it’s just 13 percent — the lowest rate among the world’s rich (“industrialized”) countries. It is no coincidence that the U.S. is, by every reasonable measure, the most unequal of the world’s rich countries.

Since 1979, the share of income going to the top 1 percent in the U.S. has grown by more than 300 percent. Meanwhile, wages have stagnated — and, for many millions, declined — even as labor productivity (the value of a worker’s output in an hour) has more than doubled! In 1978, CEOs earned 26 times more than a typical worker. In 2013, CEOs at the largest 350 U.S. corporations earned 296 times more than a typical worker! This stunning and appalling redistribution of income — economy-wide, and within corporations — is in part the result of massive tax cuts for the rich and the erosion of corporate accountability (aka “deregulation”). It is also the result of a systematic effort to undermine the bargaining power of U.S. workers. Union busting has enriched capitalists at the expense of workers.

The Right insists that working class Americans are falling behind because of overly-generous “entitlements” and overpaid public sector employees. In reality, the lost income of workers of all sorts — union and non-union, black and white, male and female, public sector and private sector — can be found in the pockets of the 1 percent.

A hundred years ago, U.S. workers — including millions of children — worked long hours for low wages in unsafe workplaces. Because of organized labor, the prospects for working Americans improved dramatically over the course of the 20th Century. Because of unions, millions of U.S. workers were able to achieve a middle class life — economic security, home ownership, health insurance, vacation time and, perhaps, a college education for their children. From 1948-1973, the incomes of working class families in the U.S. nearly doubled!

In addition to higher wages, the struggles of organized labor have delivered virtually every protection and benefit enjoyed by U.S. workers. Unions have brought working Americans the 40 hour week, paid vacation, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, overtime pay, child labor laws, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, whistleblower protection laws, sexual harassment laws, lunch breaks and coffee breaks, wrongful termination protection, sick leave, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the weekend and much more. These rights, benefits and norms were not gifts from employers. They are the result of relentless organized struggle by working Americans. And with each struggle, big business and its apologists have insisted that this change would fatally undermine their competitiveness.

As unionization rates have fallen over the past several decades, wages have stagnated and the “American Dream” has drifted out of reach for millions. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that plummeting rates of unionization account for one third of rising inequality in the U.S. since 1980.

Raising the pay of working Americans has to be at the top of a progressive agenda. And this means we have to prioritize the empowerment of the labor movement.

Are high rates of unionization possible in a global economy? Yes! Union coverage remains high in most European countries — over 90 percent in some cases — and union coverage has grown steadily over the past few decades in several countries. In a marvelous study of 21 rich countries, John Schmitt and Alexandra Mitukiewicz show that changes in unionization rates since 1960 have had little to do with globalization or changes in technology. They depend, rather, on a country’s “broad political environment.” Social Democratic countries have seen unionization rates rise. “Liberal market economies” (the U.S., UK and others) have seen unionization rates drop. De-unionization is not an imperative of the global market. It is a political choice.

But aren’t unions prone to corruption? Sometimes (although way less often than right wingers would have us believe). And some parents are abusive. Some doctors commit fraud. And some bankers are greedy and mendacious. It does not follow that we’d be better off without families, doctors, or a financial sector. Nor does it follow that workers are better off without unions.

The U.S. has long been a hostile environment for unions, and this has been especially true since 1980, when the Reagan administration declared war on organized labor. Cornell’s Kate Bronfenbrenner has chronicled the increasingly aggressive (and often illegal) tactics used by employers to block organizing efforts, and the meager protections available to organizers and workers.

The Republican Party’s economic policy agenda has not changed for decades. Cut taxes for the 1%. Deregulate – so that banks can run wild and corporations can pollute with impunity. And undermine the bargaining power of workers. Union busting is central to the Republican brand.

Working class Americans have been losing ground for 35 years. To reverse this, we need a re-empowered and a re-legitimized labor movement. We need to tell the truth about unions and union busters. We need to actively support our allies in the labor movement, and we need to demand that our representatives work to create a political and legal environment that facilitates the growth of unions and union representation.

And, relentlessly, we need to ask our representatives – especially fearful, cautious, and misguided Democrats: Which side are you on?

Unions are good for workers. It’s that simple.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-koechlin/which-side-are-you-on-unions_b_5517913.html?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Busines

By Bill Knight

– When Anchorage, Alaska, Mayor Dan Sullivan last month called union dues “slavery,” he was echoing not just the familiar, wrong-headed claims of so-called Right To Work types and extremist Republicans.

When Anchorage, Alaska, Mayor Dan Sullivan last month called union dues “slavery,” he was echoing not just the familiar, wrong-headed claims of so-called Right To Work types and extremist Republicans. He also may have foreshadowed a pending decision by a conservative Court that in recent years has seemed too willing to make decisions to benefit corporations at the expense of everyday Americans and their labor unions.

The U.S. Supreme Court this month is expected to rule on a case from Illinois that could damage the labor movement as much as the “Citizens United” and “McCutcheon” rulings hurt democracy.

At a May forum for GOP candidates for Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor, Sullivan was asked about Right To Work laws, which prohibit clauses in labor agreements that provide for the collection of union dues from workers benefiting from the contracts. Such laws are a favorite Right Wing cause, because they deprive unions of funds to function, which decreases workers’ power to raise living standards through collective bargaining.

Oddly, the mayor’s seeking higher office in a state that’s one of the country’s most unionized states. In Illinois, “Harris v. Quinn” has already been argued before the Court, and as Justices weigh their opinions, labor activists are preparing for the worst, which could be very bad.

“Harris v. Quinn” — Quinn being Gov. Pat Quinn — is a bigger threat than many realize, according to a Service Employees International Union attorney who worked on that union’s friend-of-the-court brief.

The Court’s already used the 1st Amendment’s free-speech guarantee to declare that “money is speech” and let the cash flow in “McCutcheon” and “Citizens United.” But SEIU lawyer Nicole Berner said the Justices may use the amendment’s right of free association to grant the Right To Work forces’ demand: To bar unions from collecting money — even money just for contract bargaining and administration — from their own members.

If the Supreme Court rules against organized labor, the Court would turn all 50 states into Right To Work (for Less) states where unions are prohibited from negotiating contracts calling for dues deductions – states where unions are weakened, wages are lower and workers have fewer “rights.”

The Supreme Court would be saying “our whole collective bargaining system violates the 1st Amendment,” Berner said.

Her warning came at a panel discussion at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, about a week after Sullivan’s remark. Although Berner’s panel discussed the 1st Amendment — which guarantees freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly and to seek redress for grievances — comments turned to campaign finance and the Supreme Court.

“The Right To Work Committee and home-care attendants in Illinois [a few who objected to a majority vote to organize and affiliate with SEIU] said that by charging a fee for administering the contract, the union was violating their 1st Amendment right of free association,” Berner said. “This decision would weaken the entire labor movement and the whole progressive community, because of the strength labor provides.”

Lower courts dismissed the case, saying the Right To Work committee had no standing to sue because the payments didn’t hurt that group. But the Supreme Court took the case, and in the next few weeks could eviscerate workers’ unions.

Dues are the financial means by which member organizations share common costs, of course. In the case of labor unions, dues help underwrite the expenses of representation — bargaining and enforcing contracts — that achieves better pay, hours and working conditions.

For a Court so chummy with Big Business, that may not matter.

What matters to workers whose unions help give them the legal power to bargain collectively instead of singly is what could happen with an adverse — even hostile — decision.

Anticipating that the majority of the Justices could rule against unions, Berner told Press Associates Inc. that SEIU already is considering new ways workers could organize.

If the Court rules against collecting dues, labor would have to rely on voluntary contributions and that usually results in drastically falling revenues. (For example, public-sector unions in Wisconsin saw their revenues fall by half after Right Wing Republican Gov. Scott Walker successfully got the GOP legislature to cut off dues collections.) Preparing for such a worst-case scenario, SEIU says it leaves unions an alternative: Becoming a membership organization like the NAACP “where it could build power and people in the broad sense,” Berner said.

“This case is pushing us faster in that direction,” she said. “We have to figure out a different way to be strong.”

Contact Bill at Bill.Knight@hotmail.com; his twice-weekly columns are archived at billknightcolumn.blogspot.com.

Source – http://www.cantondailyledger.com/article/20140619/NEWS/140619205/-1/sports