The labor board’s sole Republican member, Brian E. Hayes, has threatened to resign to deny the N.L.R.B. the three-person quorum it needs to make any decisions, according to board officials. Mr. Hayes has made his threat expressly to block the Democratic-dominated board from adopting new rules to speed up unionization elections, which the board’s other current members, both Democrats, intend to pass Nov. 30.
But even if Mr. Hayes does not resign, the appointment of one of the Democrats expires at the end of the year. With Senate Republicans vowing to block any replacement nominees, the board will have only two of the five members it is supposed to have — not enough to issue any decisions or rules. The board’s role is to enforce the National Labor Relations Act, a 76-year-old law that sets the rules for unionization efforts and collective bargaining in the private sector.
Unions, backed by Democrats, have long sought the proposed election rules, which they say would limit the ability of employers to use certain tactics — like challenging who is eligible to vote — to slow the election process.
Corporations, supported largely by Republicans, have denounced the proposed changes, which they say will deny businesses enough time to make their case against unionization.
“The Obama N.L.R.B. is determined to impose a flawed rule that will cripple American workers’ free choice,” said John Kline, the Minnesota Republican who is chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. “It is disturbingly clear that the board’s only concern is advancing an extreme agenda, regardless of the damage it causes our workplaces.”
The board, whose members are appointed by the president, has typically been dominated by one party or another, depending on who is in the White House. But in recent years, the partisanship has gotten nastier. For 26 months beginning in 2008, under Presidents Bush and Obama, the board did not have enough members to take action because senators of both parties blocked the other’s nominees.
This year, the partisanship leapt exponentially after the board’s acting general counsel filed a complaint against Boeing last April, asserting that the manufacturer had illegally retaliated against union members in the Puget Sound area by building an aircraft production line in South Carolina instead of Washington State. The complaint asked that Boeing’s production line be transferred to Washington.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, was so angry that he said he would most likely block any future Obama nomination to the N.L.R.B., a view echoed by many Republicans.
“I’m going to create a high bar for any future nominees,” Mr. Graham said last August. “Given its recent activity, inoperable is progress.”
Indeed, if the board is denied a quorum, it will not be able to make an official ruling that could order Boeing to close its South Carolina production line. Similarly, without a quorum, the board could not rule on a long-awaited case on whether graduate teaching assistants at private universities have the right to unionize.
Charles B. Craver, a labor law professor at George Washington University, said the angry rhetoric was “as bad as it’s been in terms of partisanship in the 40 years I’ve been in the labor field.”
The N.L.R.B. announced last Friday that it would hold a public session on Nov. 30 to vote on the rules for speedier elections. The regulations, first announced in June, aim to ensure that unionization elections are held within 21 days of workers petitioning to have a union, down from what the agency says is a median of 38 days.
The board also said that one reason it had scheduled the vote for Nov. 30 was out of concern that it would no longer have a quorum at the end of the year once the recess appointment of a Democratic member, Craig Becker, expired.
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