GOP Senators Ambush NLRB

Senate Republicans grilled the nation’s top labor regulators for undermining long-standing labor laws to benefit unions on Thursday.

Mark Gaston Pearce, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and Richard Griffin, the NLRB’s general counsel, appeared before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday to lay out the agency’s budget request. Griffin touted the board’s high caseload and efforts to “preserve industrial peace” to justify a modest uptick to its budget request.

“Without sufficient funding employees and employers will lose,” Griffin said.

Republican senators were more interested in probing the two men about controversial new regulations and rules emerging from the agency that threaten right to work laws and an unbiased election process.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, asked Pearce about a call for briefs the agency issued in April exploring whether unions should be able to charge non-members fees.

Right-to-work states are protected by the National Labor Relations Act, which allows states to adopt laws saying that employees cannot be compelled to pay unions as a condition of employment. Half of all states have passed such laws, including Sen. Alexander’s native Tennessee.

“Does that law sound permissible under the National Labor Relations Act?” Alexander asked.

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