Union Allies Call On Biden To Fire Trump’s Labor Board Attorney

One of the nation’s strongest labor unions is urging the incoming Biden administration to rapidly fireplace the overall counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, a probably precedent-setting transfer that labor teams argue is important to guard employee rights.

Peter Robb, who was appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the GOP Senate, has 10 months left in his time period because the labor board’s quasi-prosecutor. The basic counsel performs a vital position in shaping U.S. labor coverage, pursuing circumstances and setting guidelines that may decide how straightforward or troublesome it’s for staff to discount collectively.

The 2-million-member Service Employees International Union despatched a memo to President-elect Joe Biden’s transition group in late December making the authorized and ethical case for sacking Robb, calling him an “extreme, anti-union ideologue” and a “uniquely destructive figure” in labor relations, in accordance with a replica of the memo offered to HuffPost.  

On Friday, union activists plan to take their name to fireplace Robb public. The Fight for $15 marketing campaign in quick meals, which was spearheaded by SEIU, has organized a one-day strike at McDonald’s eating places in a number of cities to coincide with the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Firing Robb is anticipated to be a central theme of these protests. 

The basic counsel of the NLRB could also be an obscure official to most Americans, however what Biden chooses to do about Robb could possibly be a bellwether for a way he governs ― as a consensus-making reasonable who desires to play good with Republicans, or as a hard-nosed progressive who desires to ship for labor unions and different allies. 

SEIU supported Biden’s candidacy and campaigned for him on the bottom in essential swing states like Michigan. Bloomberg Law reported in November that employee advocacy teams had been hatching a strain marketing campaign geared toward getting Biden to fireplace Robb. Since then, SEIU has circulated memos not simply to transition officers however to different allies within the labor motion arguing for Robb’s elimination.

Terrence Wise, a Fight for $15 chief and McDonald’s employee from Kansas City, Missouri, mentioned Biden mustn’t hesitate to oust Robb.

“The NLRB is supposed to be there to help workers get a union. That hasn’t been the case. [Robb] has led the fight against unionization,” Wise mentioned.

The NLRB is an impartial company that referees disputes between employers and unions, with a five-member board that decides vital circumstances, sort of like a supreme court docket. The basic counsel, who’s separate from that board, is meant to analyze and prosecute circumstances the place employers or unions run afoul of the legislation, and to handle the work of the company’s discipline places of work. 

The basic counsel serves a 4-year time period and isn’t usually fired when a brand new president takes workplace, even from a unique political celebration. Robb’s time period is scheduled to finish in November 2021. Firing him as an alternative would enable Biden to put in a brand new basic counsel extra pleasant to staff and unions instantly.

GOP-appointed basic counsels have traditionally favored companies over unions, however labor teams argue that Robb has been egregiously anti-labor. 

SEIU and different unions had been livid over his dealing with of the NLRB’s case towards McDonald’s. The basic counsel below Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, had introduced a case towards the fast-food big alleging it had retaliated towards staff with the Fight for $15; after Robb took over, he reached a settlement with McDonald’s figuring out that the corporate wasn’t on the hook for labor violations alongside franchisees. A decide initially rejected the settlement, saying it left franchisees with “no real obligations to do anything.”

Since then, Robb has gone after so-called “neutrality” agreements between unions and employers that make it simpler for staff to prepare. And he has not too long ago taken on Scabby the Rat, the labor-dispute protest icon beloved by unions and progressives. Robb apparently hates the rat and needs to ban its use as “unlawfully coercive.” The board has requested the general public to submit briefs on the difficulty and will hand down a call that takes the air out of Scabby.  

Mary Kay Henry, the president of SEIU, mentioned in an interview that Robb’s dealing with of the McDonald’s case “shows he has done and will continue to do enormous damage to working people in the coming months.” She mentioned she has advisable he be fired in conversations with Biden transition workers.

A spokesperson for the NLRB mentioned the company declined to remark.

Aside from SEIU, no different nationwide unions seem like making public requires Robb’s ouster. But a supply near the AFL-CIO, a federation of 55 unions that doesn’t embrace SEIU, mentioned it helps the concept of booting Robb. A spokesperson for the Biden transition didn’t reply to an electronic mail searching for remark. 

The outcomes of the particular Senate elections in Georgia on Jan. 5 have possible solely firmed up SEIU’s conviction that Robb must be fired. With a Democratic majority within the Senate, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and different Republicans could have a tougher time stonewalling the nomination of a brand new, Democratic basic counsel or different nominations to the NLRB.

The foremost hazard is that such a transfer would set up a brand new precedent and {that a} future Republican president in Biden’s sneakers would oust a Democrat earlier than their time period ends in favor of somebody who’s anti-union.

Those who help firing Robb would possibly argue that Democrats mustn’t observe hitherto political norms below the expectation that Republicans can pay them the identical courtesy after they regain energy. Trump has smashed one customary after one other as different GOP leaders stood by, and McConnell has been ruthless in reshaping the Supreme Court to conservative ends. 

Henry argued the brand new administration shouldn’t fret about setting a precedent.

“I think that working people are in the depths of a crisis. I think action is required,” she mentioned. “This questioning about norms doesn’t deal with what we’ve lived through in the last 40 years in his country, where norms around working people have been eroded steadily.”

With most of one other 12 months left in his time period, unions worry Robb may do extra injury to their trigger, particularly with a 3-1 Republican majority remaining on the board. One seat is at the moment open, and the subsequent emptiness comes up in August. 

“If Robb is permitted to stay on,” SEIU’s basic counsel, Nicole Berner, wrote in a memo, “he will help that majority continue their anti-worker project through November 2021 when his own term expires, and beyond, when the Board still will be able to decide pending cases from his tenure.” 

Brandon Magner, a union-side legal professional, not too long ago wrote on his substack Labor Law Lite {that a} president’s capacity to fireplace the NLRB basic counsel seems clear. Appointees to the five-member board can solely be hooked for malfeasance or “neglect of duty” below the legislation, however no such stricture applies to the overall counsel. Saying the labor motion was “in a crisis,” Magner concluded that Biden “shouldn’t be able to stand having Peter Robb serve a second longer than necessary.”

Wise, the McDonald’s employee, agreed with that evaluation, evaluating Robb’s tenure to “the fox guarding the chicken coop.”

“That’s why we’re calling on the Biden administration ― and I would say the first day, not the first 100 days ― to get rid of this guy,” he mentioned.