House GOP Votes to Weaken Middle Class Families, Again
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans voted to weaken the nation’s middle class and working families by stopping the enforcement of the nation’s labor laws on a 219 to 209 vote today. This latest bill after two years of attempts to weaken workers’ rights, H.R. 1120, would stop the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from issuing decisions or rulings on workplace disputes between workers and businesses.
Democrats offered a final amendment to the bill that would have protected veterans' rights on the job and would have held companies that unlawfully outsource jobs overseas or violate child labor laws accountable. Republicans unanimously voted to reject this amendment.
“Instead of working to create decent jobs for the unemployed, Republicans insists on attacking the rights of the employed,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. “At a time of stagnant wages, with businesses across this country explaining that their number one problem is lack of consumer demand, we could be doing something useful today like raising the minimum wage.”
H.R. 1120 would stop nearly all activity by the NLRB. The NLRB reviews appeals on unfair labor practice rulings by administrative law judges and petitions for elections made by NLRB regional directors. If this bill were to become law, those appeals would not be heard, decisions could not be enforced, workers’ rights violations would go remedied, and election results would go uncounted. The bill also threatens to shut down all elections and unfair labor practice proceedings in entire regions of the country. This would create significant chaos in workplaces.
“This bill pushes the erase button on the labor rights of American workers,” said Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), the senior Democratic on the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee.
Republicans say that a single decision by the D.C. Circuit, known as Noel Canning, on President Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB necessitates this bill. It said that recess appointments are only constitutional if the vacancies and appointments occur in between official sessions of Congress every two years. The Congressional Research Service (pdf) found that with this reasoning, more than 300 recess appointments under Republican and Democratic presidents wouldn’t be permitted. Recess appointments like Jeane Kirkpatrick, Alan Greenspan, John Bolton, and many former Republican NLRB Members would have been invalid if this ruling were correct.
"I don’t remember House Republicans pushing a bill to shut down the Federal Reserve when Alan Greenspan was recess appointed,” said Rep. Miller. “That’s because the issue here today is not recess appointments.”
President Obama has announced a full-slate of nominees to the NLRB and they are awaiting Senate confirmation.
The NLRB announced that they would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
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