On January 4, President Obama took the unprecedented step of declaring the Senate to be in recess — although the Senate considered itself to be in session — so that he could install several appointees in key positions at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). While a lot of attention has been focused on the procedural defect of these appointments (correctly, as I’ve explained), there has been far too little attention paid to the most radical of these appointees: Richard Griffin.
Unlike Obama’s appointment of Richard Cordray, which was announced to a frighteningly enthusiastic crowd at an Ohio rally, the Griffin appointment was done quietly, in a written announcement. The appointment was a direct reward for the union bosses who made an enormous contribution to Obama’s 2008 campaign and will be critical to his reelection effort.
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It was also a response to the administration’s failure to get card-check legislation passed.
As longtime union organizer Stewart Acuff put it: “If we aren’t able to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, we will work with President Obama and Vice President Biden and their appointees to the National Labor Relations Board to change the rules governing forming a union through administrative action.”
In 2010, Obama used a legitimate recess appointment to install radical union lawyer Craig Becker on the NLRB to do precisely what Acuff had suggested. And indeed, before Becker’s appointment expired at the end of last year, the NLRB made a number of new rules to tilt the playing field toward union bosses.
They greatly shortened the timetable for union elections to allow union organizers to ambush employers with surprise elections, approved so-called micro-unions to allow organizers to cherry-pick very narrow classes of workers, in order to get a foot in the door, and took away the right of workers to demand a secret-ballot election in cases where employers collude with union organizers to forego one.
But with a difficult reelection on the horizon that will depend heavily on support from union bosses, this year Obama took his union pandering to another level, installing Griffin with far less scrutiny than Becker received. There was no vetting of Griffin’s background. In fact, Obama named him as an appointee only on December 15, 2011 — less than three weeks before the Obama non-recess recess maneuver. He never went through the normal background check performed by the Senate. He never filled out the usual questionnaire, or met with any Republican senators.
Griffin has the dubious distinction of being the second board member ever (Becker was the first) to join the NLRB directly from a labor union. In Griffin’s case it’s the International Union of Operating Engineers, where he was general counsel. The IUOE is one of the most chronically corrupt unions in America, with ongoing criminal investigations against several of its locals and a history of criminal misconduct.
The IUOE is an especially autocratic union that has been criticized by union activists for imposing strict censorship on members who have the temerity to criticize union leadership on the Internet. Griffin justified the gag rule as necessary to protect the “union’s sensitive and/or confidential internal workings.” In truth, the order was designed to make it impossible for workers to successfully challenge their corrupt leadership. Griffin even threatened to fine union members for challenging the gag rule in court.
Doesn't his invalid appointment neutralise the NLRB? Any decision he makes can be challenged in court, both for the usual reasons and that he has no authority.
In order for the rulings to be challenged in court the person(s) bringing suit must have "standing". Meaning that the congress cannot sue, nor can any other person or corporation until the one of the rulings have been enacted and the person(s) bringing suit have been "damaged" by the ruling in question.
So the time between enacting rules and the time damages take place and then winding it through the court system will take 5-10 years and millions of dollars in legal fees both on the side of the litigant and the government.
Most quickest way to resolve the problem is for the GOP to get control of the White house and get some more friendly persons appointed into these positions to overturn the rules that these people put in place.
It is quite irritating that if the rules were put before the American public the bulk of us would dislike them as being overly onerous and expensive for employers to comply with and will kill jobs and force more employers to farm their work out to foreign countries.
The bulk of the American public has no idea why employers send work overseas, this is one of the large reasons. It is an indirect tax on us because we could make goods here as cheaply as anywhere else in the world without this type of government intervention, but crony capitalism is alive and well in the White House now as much as, or more than it ever was. So much for electing a guy that was going to change the way Washington operates and be the most open and transparent government in history.
Does anyone actually read the Constitution? The "Recess Appointment Clause" is very short (and should be called the "Recess Vacancy Clause")
"The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate by granting Commissions, which shall expire at the End of their next session."
Why does no one seem to grasp that the VACANCY has to happen during a recess?
Does anyone actually read the Constitution? The "Recess Appointment Clause" is very short (and should be called the "Recess Vacancy Clause")
"The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate by granting Commissions, which shall expire at the End of their next session."
Why does no one seem to grasp that the VACANCY has to happen during a recess?
And they wounder why all of our manufacturing and labor related jobs are going overseas? Hows Boeing feel about this? Is their plant in So Carolina up and running? To make a product overseas you don't have:
OSHA
EPA
NLRB
Unions
Mandatory Healthcare
Highest Taxes in the World
labor Strikes
Taxes for emissions or waste removal
Never ending regulations
lawyers to defend your business from all of these attacks
Miles of paperwork
minimum wage liabilities
You just negotiate one price for one product or service and someone else makes it
Almost all of the US companies customer service is now performed in India - they are even taught to speak with different American accents
China now makes most of our high labor products. We will keep the highly automated jobs here - for now - but keep the taxes high and soon we will lose them as well.
Perhaps Donald Trump needs to look at this board (NLRB) as well when he keeps complaining about China! !China may manipulate their currency but we are manipulating our society against its' own good.
To answer your question, the Boeing plant in South Carolina is finally operational (albeit limited), but only after Obama's NLRB forced huge concessions to labor that guarantee certain aspects of the assembly process be retained in Washington. Of course, that makes a tremendous amount of sense when you look at a map of the United States. And we wonder why our country has lost its competitive edge.
Anyone who Obama appoints to anything is "dangerous" because he is Obama and the GOP detests him. Everything Obama does is wrong because he is Obama and the GOP detests him. Even if Obama did everything the GOP wants to do, he would still be wrong because he is Obama and the GOP detests him. That's the bottom line.
Anything conservatives say is wrong because they are conservatives and Humpty Dumpty detests them. Even if conservatives said everything that Humpty Dumpty wants them to say, they would still be wrong because they are conservatives and Humpty Dumpty detests them. That's the bottomline.
Another step in the comunization process of America by Mullah Obama. The ACORN brownshirts and union thugs supplied by SEIU, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, NEA, AFT, Steel and Auto workers, Teamsters, local government employees unions, etc. constitute Obama system of local soviets (in Russian it means community organizations) will ensure Obama's re-election by a massive vote fraud.
