America’s ‘Supreme Court of labor law’ fully staffed after 10 years

Working against an August recess deadline and through a contentious battle, the US Senate this week approved three of President Obama’s nominees and two GOP picks as the five new members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

On Tuesday, the Senate voted to clear all five nominees — Harry Johnson III, Philip Miscimarra, Nancy Schiffer, Kent Hirozawa and current chair Mark Pearce— to the board, which settles labor disputes within the US for businesses and protects workers’ rights.

MSNBC blogger Steve Benen called the vote “a quiet win for progressive governance.”

This will be the first time in over a decade that the NLRB will have no vacancies.

Perhaps MSNBC's Chris Hayes described the significance of the NLRB best when, in a segment of “All In” he called the board the "Supreme Court of labor law in this country."

"If you don't have a remedy, you don't have meaningful rights,” Hayes said. “The Supreme Court of labor law, the NLRB has been inoperable for a year and a half. It's really astounding. I mean, think about just turning off the Supreme Court for a year and a half. All those big decisions that came down the last few weeks, all the consequences for people seeking redress, gone, shuttered.

And there are real consequences for the NLRB. It oversees all kinds of cases. If your boss illegally withholds wages or benefits, if your boss fires you for a Facebook post about safety or salary in the workplace, if your boss fires for you trying to organize fellow workers, all those disputes would work their way through to the NLRB.”

If the NLRB is not there to tell an employer that “he can't do that,” Hayes concluded, “well, then, your boss can pretty much do as he pleases."

As of this week, however, an employer’s ability to “do as he pleases” is no longer an issue. The NLRB is fully ready to resume its duties.

“This board is an important safeguard for workers in America — regardless of whether the employees are union or non-union,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said. “Without the work of the NLRB, employees who have been cheated and treated unfairly would have no entity to address the wrongs.”

But who and what, exactly, does the NLRB protect?

All workers, union or non-union, and the National Labor Relations Act, which states that employees are “guaranteed the right to form, join, decertify, or assist a labor organization, and to bargain collectively through representative of their own choosing, or to refrain from such activities.”

In other words, those protected under the NLRB are free to organize for improved pay and conditions of work, and free not to organize. The board investigates charges of work-related problems and abuses filed by employees, and conducts fair elections for those employees who want to create or dissolve a union.

Just yesterday—amid high controversy over immigration policy and high percentages of unemployment in recent years—the NLRB, together with the Mexican Foreign Ministry signed a “letter of agreement to strengthen collaborative efforts.”

Under the framework of the agreement, the NLRB will work with the Mexican Embassy in Washington, DC, as well as the board’s regional offices and nationwide Mexican Consulates, to provide outreach, education, and training to Mexican workers, their employers, and Mexican business owners in the US.

“We recognize the need to improve employer and worker awareness of the rights and obligations under the Act that are applicable to all Mexican workers in the United States of America,” General Counsel Lafe Solomon said. “This agreement will give us a greater opportunity to fulfill the goals of the National Labor Relations Act, to guarantee the right of workers – including employees just entering the work force – to engage or refrain from engaging in protected-concerted or organizing activity to improve their working conditions without fear of discrimination, harassment or retaliation.”