The Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board just rammed through a truly noxious union-busting rule, saying that nurses who supervise other nurses can be classified as supervisors and thus would not eligible to join unions. This ruling will unquestionably be applied to other jobs too, forcing many not to be in unions.
The ruling may not be able to be appealed.
Labor lawyer Ian Thompson wrote prior to the ruling about this noxious attempt to smash unions and the history of ruling class attacks on working class.
Bush’s appointees likely will rule in favor of the corporate owners. However, focusing political pressure almost solely on the NLRB shows an underlying faith in how the board works. These trade unionists, along with many Democratic Party allies, believe that the NLRB, if different in composition, actually operates in the interests of workers.
They believe that when a Democrat is president, the NLRB magically becomes pro-worker because the president can appoint more progressive members. This notion is utterly false.
Nathan Newman, who covers labor issues extensively, blogs:
But divide and conquer, pitting people against each other based on race, ethnicity, gender and now menial distinctions in authority on the shopfloor are the tools of the trade for the corporate rightwing. This decision is just one more bullet to the rights of working Americans.