Clinton’s Labor Board Must Go
A legacy that lives on.

or more than eight years, the National Labor Relations Board has been the AFL-CIO's secret weapon. Even now, right under President Bush's nose, the Clinton holdovers on the NLRB have issued a flurry of rulings that further increase union power at the expense of individual rights. Does the White House's domestic team have the stomach to do anything about it?

The president has the power today to make four nominations — three Republicans and one Democrat — on the five-member board. Yet the White House has not yet chosen to use its leverage, instead making only two nominations: those of Republican Alex Acosta and Democrat Dennis Walsh.

Walsh is already on the board, having been handed a recess appointment at the same time that Clinton handed out pardons to donors, crooks, and relatives. Over the past 11 months, Walsh has helped mastermind the most extreme anti-employee rulings issued by the labor board in years.

For example, the Democrat majority ruled that non-union employees can be required to wear union propaganda as a job condition. In so doing, the NLRB quashed a case brought by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys on behalf of a BellSouth technician forced to wear a union patch on his work uniform. Thanks to union shills like Walsh, employees can now be fired for refusing to serve as walking union billboards.

In another case, Walsh and his cohorts ruled that union officials are not liable when their negligence in operating an exclusive hiring hall causes financial harm. The NLRB's victim, Joe Jacoby, had been denied weeks of wages because a union negligently failed to refer him a job he had coming. Thus, according to the NLRB, when a union's carelessness harms an innocent victim, there is no recourse an immunity enjoyed by no other institution or business in America.

And Walsh's merry band of Clinton holdovers continues to bend over backwards to force union "representation" on employees who overwhelmingly reject it. In one case, the NLRB ignored the wishes of 183 of 235 employees who petitioned to free themselves from unwanted union affiliation. (The company had been accused, though not found guilty, of unfair labor practices.)

Walsh has also voted to let union militants videotape replacement workers, their vehicles, and their license plates. Union officials use this tactic to identify and potentially target non-striking workers for retaliation. Thankfully, he was voted down.

In apparent ignorance of Walsh's disturbing record, someone persuaded Bush last month to nominate him to a new three-year term. At the same time, the President has not yet attempted to place a Republican majority on the NLRB — much less a majority that will fight the excesses of forced unionism.

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle declared the nomination of Eugene Scalia for Labor Department Solicitor dead. According to the National Right to Work Committee, the foundation's sister organization, this action makes it even more obvious that the White House needs to get tough. That's why the committee late last week called upon President Bush to immediately withdraw the nomination of Dennis Walsh before Daschle makes good on his promise to bring the nomination to a floor vote over Republican objections. Otherwise, Republicans may face the embarrassment of filibustering a Bush nominee.

It's hard to understand why the White House is underestimating the severity of the NLRB situation. If siding with 80 percent of the American people who oppose forced unionism isn't reason enough to do take action, then perhaps the White House should consider self-preservation. Union operatives spent more than $800 million in forced union dues to defeat Bush and other Republicans last year, and according to statements made from the AFL-CIO convention in Las Vegas this week, they intend to come back next year with guns blazing.

Many on Capitol Hill understand what needs to be done. Georgia Republican congressman Charlie Norwood remarked in a congressional hearing last month that "the best way to describe the support the NLRB gives to workers attempting to uphold their constitutional rights is that it is like the support a rope gives to a hanging man."

Kicking out the Clinton NLRB is a necessary step toward freeing America's working people from Big Labor's tyranny. It's high time for the White House to act.