Jerry, the NLRB's decisions are appealed first to federal Appeals Court -- the SCt doesn't have jurisdiction till the Circuit Ct is through, and is unlikely to hear the case (any case). The Board has been lowering the bar for who counts as a supervisor for some time. Most notoriously a decade or so ago, in a case that did go to the S.Ct, Yeshiva, it was held that private university faculty are supervisors, and so cannot be represented, despite the peon status of jumior faculty, because they have some say in hiring and firing.
When I worked at the UAW Legal Dept the General Counsel would sometimes say that he wished that Congress would just repeal the NLRA (not Noris-LaGuardia, limiting the federal labore injunction) and let the unions fight it out with the bosses on the state level.
jks
--- Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
> If I remember correctly, this is actually an old
> decision by one of the
> regional Boards. I mentioned the decision in a
> previous thread. Now the
> decision has been appealed to the national Board.
> Thus administrative review
> has been exhausted. It can now be considered by the
> Sup Ct if they grant
> cert. Sorry to mention the disposition of the case
> but I thought someone
> might be curious.
>
> There is another thread somewhere on this list where
> I mention the origins
> of some of these decisions during and directly after
> World War II. But the
> difference between then and now is this: The NLRB
> for the most part
> interpreted the Wagner Act in such a way that as
> many people (some who would
> now be called supervisors or independent
> contractors) as possible had a
> legal right to form a bargaining unit. At that time
> it was the _U.S. Sup
> Ct._ not the NLRB, that narrowed the interpretation
> of who could join a
> union. Remember these were historically the most
> "liberal" courts in U.S.
> history. And yet they were constantly narrowing the
> application of the
> Wagner Act. It is ironic now that a highly
> conservative and pro-business
> NLRB may only be checked by a right-wing and
> pro-business Supreme Court. I
> think though that the only hope on this one is if
> Scalia is actually serious
> about strict interpretation of the statute. He is
> not.
>
> Other similar decisions recently is widening the
> interpretation of who is an
> independent contractor -- thus newsboys are
> independent contractors and no
> longer have a legally guaranteed right to form a
> union. (Remember the movie
> _Newsies_ anybody? The only pro-union Disney movie
> I no of.) A similar
> analysis went into the Supreme Court decision that
> took away the right of
> professors to bargain collectively.
>
> One of my H.S. friends is president of a Hollywood
> union and if this
> decision were applied to them many of the people in
> his union would probably
> not have a right to organize. The only solution is
> to find a way to
> maneuver around these NLRB rulings.
>
> What must be recognized here is that this does not
> stop such people from
> forming unions. It does take away legally enforced
> rights to collective
> bargaining. Practically, in the current social
> situation, this means the
> same thing. But with a high level of solidarity
> between workers - in the
> hospital situation, doctors, janitors, teamsters,
> orderlies, receptions,
> etc. -- who would simply refuse to work as long as
> the nurses did not have
> their own union the employer might consider
> bargaining. It might seem like
> pie in the sky, at the moment, but not impossible.
> What the NLRB decisions
> are doing is constricting collective bargaining
> rights. It is part of the
> long assault on the New Deal and it will not end
> until we make it end. The
> effect of these NLRB decisions is to make it so that
> the only alternative
> for workers who want to organize is outside of the
> legal system, and with
> whatever economic brute force workers can muster.
> That was the situation
> which the original Wagner act was designed to solve.
>
> Jerry Monaco
>
> On 10/4/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > [this looks seriously bad, but it's gotten little
> attention, or so it
> > seems]
> >
> > NLRB Redefines Union Eligibility
> >
> > By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
> > Published: October 4, 2006
> > Filed at 11:07 a.m. ET
> >
> > WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal panel has redefined
> which workers are
> > supervisors exempted from legal protection to join
> unions, bringing
> > cries of protest from organized labor and sharp
> criticism from a
> > former chairman of the National Labor Relations
> Board.
> >
> > The labor relations board ruled that nurses who
> regularly run shifts
> > at health care facilities should be considered
> supervisors and be
> > exempt from federal protections that cover union
> membership. The
> > decision Tuesday potentially has major
> implications for workers in
> > other fields.
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
>
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