Interesting. You get transcripts. I got this in a podcast, but also as a video.
There's a terrific series of three discussions that Paul Jay has with members
of the Working Families of Maryland. Most of them, one way or another, are
supportive of, or making excuses for, the Democratic Party because the Working
Families actually is an arm of the Democratic party, although it doesn't admit
to it. Paul Jay is arguing with them because in many cases, most of them seem
to be making excuses for corporate Democrats. He's becoming another one of my
heroes. He makes his position very clear, even though he's a journalist. His
questions are sharp.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2017 1:10 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Bob Hachey <bhachey@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] NLRB: just because Labor Relations is in the name,
don't believe it
Here's another example of what is going forward while we all giggle and gawk at
Russiagate.
Carl Jarvis
Michael Arria is a reporter who covers labor and social movements.
He's also the author of Medium Blue: The Politics of MSNBC.
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transcript
Trump Stacking The National Labor Relations Board to Favor Corporations
SHARMINI PERIES: It's the Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you
from Baltimore. It would be reasonable to expect that the head of the Labor
Department and the National Labor Relations Board would be those who advocate
for working Americans, people who will use the power of the Department and the
National Labor Relations Board to rein in corporate greed and to improve the
lives of ordinary working Americans. Well, while most of Washington and its
legislators and its press have been preoccupied with Russiagate, some
fundamental changes are taking place that can unravel labor conditions in this
country for decades to come. Joining me now to take a closer look at who's who
in labor relations these days and in the Trump administration is Michael Arria.
Michael is a reporter covering labor and social movements. He's also the author
of Medium Blue: The Politics of MSNBC. Thanks for joining us, Michael.MICHAEL
ARRIA: Sure, thanks for having me.SHARMINI PERIES: So, Michael, before we dive
into this topic, let's outline what the Labor Relations Board is and what it
does.MICHAEL ARRIA: Sure. So, the NLRB is the National Labor Relations Board,
was created in the 1930s, 1933, under FDR. It's a five-person board which is
responsible for interpreting and enforcing labor law in the United States. It's
had a variety of issues throughout the years, but I'd say in recent memory, it
had become kind of a joke. Under George W. Bush, he had ...
George W. Bush, when president, had refused to appoint some people to open
seats, and the Democrats controlled the Senate at the time, so they had refused
to confirm some of his appointments. And for a large amount of time, I think
from December 2007 through June of 2010, the five-member board only had two
members on it, which led to questions regarding its authority, and ultimately a
legal challenge. The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that it ... Not only did the
two-member version of the board not have any authority, but also, none of the
decisions it had made had any authority either.So that was kind of the state of
the NLRB not too long ago. It was not really regarded by many in labor as a
beacon of hope, to put it mildly. But I think what we've seen, really, to the
surprise of many, since Obama was able to fill out the remaining seats on the
board, we've seen the NLRB kind of emerge as an effective interpreter of this
kind of current economic landscape we're in. We have seen them make all kinds
of important decisions that kind of tilt some of the power back to workers.
They ... Very important decision that increased the organizing rights of
graduate students, a very important decision that increased the organizing
rights of employees at charter school.And perhaps most importantly, in 2015,
the Browning-Ferris ruling, which kind of chipped away at the legal barrier
between a corporation and its given franchises. So when we look at movements
like the Fight for $15, or the efforts to organize fast-food workers and retail
workers, there's been attempts by groups like the SEIU to kind of hold
corporations like McDonald's responsible for the actions of its given stores,
and rulings like this, I think, have been a real breakthrough, and they've
been, if unexpected, very welcomed by labor. And that might kind of sound like
a long-winded backstory, but I think it's necessary context to the In These
Times piece I wrote, which is about the fact that the Trump administration is
now poised to not only tilt the balance of power back to management on the
board, but also potentially undo a lot of these important rulings that have
taken place.SHARMINI PERIES: Michael, honestly, last time I saw anything
related to the Labor Relations in the mainstream media is when Secretary of
Labor Alexander Acosta was appointed, and some of the controversy around that.
But media has really dropped the ball on protecting the interests of ordinary
workers, but you have been a unique exception to that. Give us a sense of who's
getting appointed to the Labor Relations Board that concerns you.MICHAEL ARRIA:
Well, you're definitely right to say that it hasn't been covered. I'd say that
the ... When we look at the hearing which took place on July 13th, it took
place just 10 days after, I believe, the Senate had gone back into session, and
... The Senate session had begun just 10 days after the nomination of one of
the nominees, and the other one just four days after, so there's very little
time to potentially research or vet these two nominations. It was kind of an
unprecedentedly fast-tracked ... In addition to the two people that were
nominated to the NLRB board, the GOP also bundled in another nominee to the
Labor Department in the same hearing, a guy named Patrick Pizzella, who
probably deserves a hearing of his own. He worked with the disgraced lobbyist
Jack Abramoff during the 1990s to try to get the North Mariana Islands exempt
from labor law, kind of a very ugly story there.But this was all kind of
rushed. There was a letter sent to Lamar Alexander, who's the head of the HELP
Committee, who held the hearings, to ask him for an extension of time to take a
closer look at these nominations, and that was not granted, so the entire
process was kind of sped up. And the two nominees to the NLRB, the first one is
a guy named William Emanuel, who's a management-side attorney based in Los
Angeles. He comes from a firm called Littler Mendelson, which has been
notoriously connected to union-busting for decades. He authored an amicus brief
on class action waivers; class action waivers have actually been deemed illegal
by the NLRB. And when he was nominated, as is customary, he handed over a list
of clients that he'd worked with that he said he would recuse himself from if
they had cases come up in front of the NLRB, and the list is full of
corporations which have clashed directly with the NLRB in recent
years: J.P. Morgan, Nissan, probably most prominently Uber.So that's one of the
nominees to the NLRB, and the other one is a guy named Marvin Kaplan, who
served for the Republicans on the House Committee on Education and the
Workforce, which held hearings during his tenure scrutinizing many NLRB
decisions, and he was also instrumental in developing a piece of legislation
called the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act, which is trying to increase
the amount of time between when a board authorizes a workplace unionization
vote and when that vote actually takes place. So, since 2014, that space of
time has been
11 days, but many people, anti-labor forces are trying to extend that to at
least
35 days so that management can have a little more time to potentially stomp out
any organizing or attempts at creating a union. So that's the history and
backstory of the two people that were nominated. They both have long careers
connected to anti-labor policies, I'd say.SHARMINI PERIES:
What kind of effect,
or how will the dynamics change with existing members and these new
appointments, as far as you can foresee?MICHAEL ARRIA: Well, it's difficult to
say for sure. I think this is part of a much wider plan by the Trump
administration to crack down on labor. I mean, you mentioned the new Labor
Secretary earlier.
It was just announced a couple days ago, I think, that he is moving ahead at
undoing the overtime legislation that Obama passed shortly before leaving
office that would potentially increase the pay of, I think, 4.2 million
Americans. We see some of these OSHA rules have already been folded back, and
we see the ... Trump's budget, which he had revealed, which calls for deep cuts
to the Labor Department, and cuts to these work training programs.So it's hard
to see how this shakes out, but this is kind of like the last piece, I think,
to the Trump administration's assault on labor, because up until this point,
they have really not had control of the NLRB, and these ... You know, we're
talking about how the process was kind of sped up, and there wasn't much time.
These nominees are expected to get confirmed, obviously, with the Republicans
in control. The final vote in the committee was
12 to 11, down
party lines, so everybody, I think, is expecting them to control this agency
soon.SHARMINI PERIES: And on the part of workers and ordinary citizens,
families of working poor and so on, what can they actually do to protect their
rights, especially if these nominations go through? I just don't think people
are aware and conscious of these changes that are taking place that can
dramatically change their lives in the years to come.MICHAEL ARRIA:
Yeah, I mean, I
think it's different with every situation, but I actually ... It's interesting,
I think, as the NLRB has kind of changed, and we're talking about this story
being under-reported, but I'm not sure if any of those Obama-era advancements
were reported very much. There has been a few calls in various places for some
in labor to focus a little more, maybe, on what's referred to on the right
sometimes as "judicial activism," and maybe try to take some of what the NLRB
does a little more seriously, and push for new types of enforcement of these
rules.So it's going to be very interesting to see it play out, and I think it's
especially interesting because Trump has had a very ...
You know, on one hand, it's easy to say that he's leading this assault on
labor; on the other hand, he courted labor during the campaign in a way that we
really haven't seen from a Republican since Ronald Reagan, and for all the talk
about how he ran a campaign with no investment in polling and he really didn't
know what he was doing, I think that when we look at labor, it definitely paid
off. I mean, he got more labor votes than Mitt Romney, or John McCain, or
George W. Bush, or George W. Bush's dad. So we're looking at a kind of a ...
Like everything with the Trump administration, there's kind of a huge gulf
between the rhetoric and the actual policy, and we see a lot of focus on the
rhetoric, but I think this is just one of the many examples where we see the
policy kind of passing by without much comment or reporting.SHARMINI PERIES:
All right, Michael Arria, thank you so much for joining us today and giving us
a snippet of what's going on in the ... As far as the Trump appointees and the
changes that are taking place in the area of labor. Love to have you back to
discuss more. Thanks so much.MICHAEL ARRIA: Sure, thanks for having me.SHARMINI
PERIES: And thank you for joining me here on The Real News Network.
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