Today the New York Times published a letter to the editor from union activist Wilma Liebman, who as a member of the National Labor Relations Board has testified before Congress on behalf of the woefully misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (a.k.a. the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill) and complaining about individual rights. In the letter, Liebman writes:
Labor policy is indeed a long-neglected arena, ripe for the intervention of President-elect Barack Obama. What the editorial doesn’t mention is the opportunity to revitalize the National Labor Relations Board, which administers the main federal labor law.
During the Bush administration, nearly every policy choice made by a sharply divided board impeded collective bargaining, created obstacles to union representation or favored employer interests. Not surprisingly, the board has lost legitimacy.
But how can the board be legitimate when a member of the Board spends her free time bashing the very law she is supposed impartially to enforce while campaigning -- in Congress, in "academic" journals, in the letters section of the Times -- to rewrite it.
One wonders how an employee could expect Liebman (who previously worked as a union lawyer) to fairly apply the law in a case where union intimidation restrains an employee's free choice to not associate with a union. Surely in most other fora, judges would recuse themselves in such cases. (In fact, it may be appropriate for legal counsel to seek Liebman's recusal if they believe her naked union activism has forfeited her objectivity.)
Member Liebman can parrot Big Labor talking points all she wants, but the fact remains that she routinely displays an ugly disdain for true employee free choice -- the right for each employee to decide on his or her own, without being intimidated by a union organizer, whether to join or pay dues to a union.
