GOP Attack on NLRB Fails in Senate
April 26, 2012
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With a 45 to 54 vote, a Republican-backed bill to undo a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rule ensuring fair union representation elections failed in the U.S. Senate.
The new rules issued by the NLRB last December would make union representation elections fairer by simplifying procedures, deferring litigation and setting shorter deadlines for hearings and filings, making it harder for businesses to delay elections and union-bust.
Republican members of Congress, trying to pay back their corporate donors by slashing workers’ rights, were attempting to ram through the resolution against the new rules in hopes of muddling the union election process. The attack on the NLRB is just the latest in a series of relentless, nationally coordinated GOP assaults on workers and collective bargaining rights. According to American Rights at Work (ARAW), Congressional Republicans have made nearly 50 separate assaults on the NLRB since last year by holding hearings, issuing subpoenas and proposing bills to gut the agency’s funding and eliminate its ability to hold employers accountable for violating workers’ rights.
The NLRB’s new rules for union representation elections are set to take effect April 30th.
