Even Republican Witness Agrees GOP is Making Inappropriate Demands for Internal NLRB Documents
GOP use subcommittee hearing to attack workers First Amendment and due process rights
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A witness called by the majority of a House subcommittee agreed that the National Labor Relations Board should resist efforts to turn over internal documents regarding their pending case against Boeing demanded by Washington Republicans. The NLRB is an independent, quasi-judicial agency that enforces and administers the rights of employers and employees in disputes arising under the National Labor Relations Act.
Jonathan Fritts, a witness called by Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee Republicans, agreed with U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) when asked whether the NLRB should resist turning over communications between the regional NLRB and the acting general counsel in the Boeing case because they may contain sensitive materials under attorney-client privilege. Watch a video of the exchange.
“Do you agree that the Board should zealously defend that privilege?” asked Andrews, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee.
“I agree that they do and I agree that they should,” Fritts responded.
House Republicans are attempting to gain internal documents in two cases that have yet to be decided. In the Boeing case, Republicans have asked for internal communications – which may include trial strategy and witness testimony – of the NLRB’s acting general counsel before the trial before an administrative law judge on June 14. In a case involving health care workers, Republicans have asked for internal deliberative documents from the judges who will decide the case while they are still in deliberations.
Rep. George Miller (D-CA) recently asked Education and the Workforce Committee Republicans to suspend their demands for internal documents in the health workers case until it has been decided because the request may interfere with the due process rights of those involved in the case.
Subcommittee Republicans also today questioned whether the National Labor Relations Board is being too protective of workers’ rights under the U.S. constitution and federal law. They criticized efforts by workers and unions to bargain for a better life through public communications efforts called corporate campaigns or corporate social responsibility campaigns.
However, a witness who studies labor and constitutional law disagreed with Republicans that workers should have fewer rights to free speech than corporations.
“Thus, at the heart of a corporate social responsibility campaign is the right to speak on matters of public concern and to petition government for the redress of grievances,” said Catherine Fisk, professor of law at the University of California Irvine. “The notion that labor picketing can be prohibited because it is so persuasive to workers and consumers sympathetic to labor’s causes is simply impossible to square with the rest of free speech jurisprudence, which does not allow government to prohibit speech simply because some find it persuasive.”
Reps. Andrews and Miller wrote a column on these issues that appeared in today’s edition of Politico. Read the column here.
# # #
Next Article