Obama Sues Four States for His Union Buddies’ Card-Check Agenda
As Barack Obama’s memorial speech in Tuscon brought healing to Arizona, his administration was preparing to bring the pain. As part of the Friday news dump, Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced it planned to sue the states of Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah to allow unions to continue organizing through card-check instead of the secret ballot. This is a fight Republicans should welcome, because its terms and tactics reveal a White House desperate to bypass the will of the people and rule by federal decree.
In November, voters in four states approved state constitutional amendments that gave all employees the right to a secret ballot election when deciding whether to unionize. The elections were lopsided blowouts that set back the labor cause. Voters approved the measures by:
- 60 percent in Utah;
- 61 percent in Arizona;
- 79 percent in South Dakota; and
- 86 percent in South Carolina.
Now, in steps the federal bureaucracy. The NRLB — under the control of former union lawyers like SEIU extremist Craig Becker — contends that the state referenda conflict with federal law. NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon sent a series of letters to the states’ attorney generals threatening legal action from attorney Mark Eskenazi, if the states do not overturn the will of the vast majority of their voters. (The extortion letters are also signed by Eric Moskowitz and Abby Propis Simms, Assistant and Deputy General Counsel, respectively.)
A provision in the National Labor Relations Act, they claim, allows employers to voluntarily recognize unions after a card-check campaign; thus, the state provisions are unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Harold
ACGR's "News with Attitude" 