Republican Leaders Oppress Workers

Anytime workers try to unionize, management almost invariably stalls to delay the vote as long as possible to bully, bribe and blackmail.  The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) set in place a new rule to accelerate the process of holding a vote to unionize.  Needless to say, The Republican Party have their panties in a bunch and are having fits.

Today, the National Labor Relations Board announced a new rule aimed at speeding up the process for union elections, in an attempt to prevent employers from using the various tactics they break out to delay and ultimately undermine unionization drives. According to research by John-Paul Ferguson of Stanford Business School, 35 percent of the time that workers file a petition for a union election, the election does not occur due to the many steps that employers take — including bringing in anti-union consultants — to delay elections for weeks, if not years.

Currently, the average time between workers filing a petition for an election and the election taking place is 58 days, ample time for employers to engage in coercion and intimidation, or to fire pro-union workers (which happens in 25 percent of union drives). But congressional Republicans — who are whipped into an uproar by any step that favors workers over corporations — still screamed bloody murder over the change:

HOUSE LABOR COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN JOHN KLINE (R-MN) [Murdoch delinked] “urged the [NLRB] to ‘scrap’ what he called a ‘reckless’ and ‘job-destroying agenda.” “Not only will this misguided proposal to expedite union elections undermine an employer’s lawful right to communicate with his or her employees, it will cripple a worker’s ability to make an informed decision,” he said.

SEN. MIKE ENZI (R-WY) [Murdoch delinked]: “This is just the latest outrage from a runaway agency.”

… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Obama’s appointments to the NLRB is one of the things he has done right.

Somehow, anything that helps American workers is job killing.  Of course, Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires, and corporate criminals.  They will never represent YOU!