Sunday, June 5, 2011

Short Labor Croak

Jared Bernstein wrote:
Strengthening of labor laws is important. Most objective observers judge the playing field for union organizing to be seriously tilted against forming a union. Union-busting—mostly by making sure elections to recognize a union fail—has become a huge business; I’ve heard there are law firms that offer money-back guarantees. A functional NLRB is very important in this space and as you can imagine, they were not exactly loaded for bear during the Bush years. But they’re back now and have some good ideas (and they can make rule changes, as opposed to legislative ones, which are a much heavier lift). I’ll try to write about them soon.
My response, in comments:
The hell with “strengthening” labor laws. Repeal Taft-Hartley, and then we’ll talk. As a start, Obama could appoint pro-labor NRLB members as he gets the chance. Heck, I’d settle for neutral members.

(And you know, and I know, that there isn’t a chance of either of those before 2012, and probably not before 2020. The fight continues.)

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