‘Rights’ charade
Unable to advance “card check” and other union-coddling measures, Team Obama has tossed yet another bone to organized labor.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which includes three recess appointments by President Obama, has proposed a new rule requiring most private-sector employers to inform workers of their “rights” — specifically their right to unionize . Notice of this new rule was submitted last month to the Federal Register, which allows a 60-day comment period.
It would require that the “rights” notice be posted alongside all other workplace memos — or sent electronically if an employer uses e-mail to communicate with staffers.
The NLRB rule couldn’t be more union-sympathetic: “(E)mployees have the right to act together to improve wages and working conditions, to form, join and assist a union, to bargain collectively with their employers, and to choose not to do any of these activities.”
And what better time than during the holidays for the supposedly “independent” NLRB to slip through a rule with serious ramifications for employers in the private sector, where only 7.2 percent of employees are union members. Airline, railroad and agricultural businesses would be excluded.
What’s proposed is another thinly veiled sop to unions — government encouragement to unionize. Employers shouldn’t be forced to tolerate it.