Bill McMorris reports for the Washington Free Beacon that congressional Republicans are taking aim at the National Labor Relations Board.
Senate Republicans hope to use their new majority to rein in President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and labor committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) introduced the NLRB Reform Act on Wednesday to add an additional member to the federal labor arbiter, which oversees union elections and labor relations.
“The NLRB’s politically motivated decisions and controversial regulations threaten the jobs of hardworking Americans who just want to provide for their families,” McConnell said in a release. “It’s time to restore balance and bipartisanship.”
The agency’s board is comprised of five political appointees, and the majority reflects the partisan make-up of the White House. President Obama’s board has three pro-union members and two Republican appointees taken from management-side law firms.
Republicans have targeted the NLRB for reform after the board overturned decades of precedent to revamp labor policy to emphasize union concerns over those of management. McConnell said that workers have paid the price for the agency’s actions during the Obama years.
“The NLRB Reform Act would help turn the board’s focus from ideological crusades that catch workers in the crossfire to the kind of common-sense, bipartisan solutions workers deserve,” he said.