[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6983-6984]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I recognize we are in a partisan 
environment. In a partisan environment, there is temptation to turn 
every issue into a political issue. We certainly live in one of those 
environments today. That is regrettable but far from unfamiliar. 
Politics play a role in our representative government, of course, and 
they always have. The Founders created a system of checks and 
balances--three branches of government, for example, and two Chambers 
of the Congress--precisely because they anticipated these passions. Our 
Founding Fathers wanted to keep us from losing our way.
  Long after that system was created, a new, independent Federal agency 
was created in the same spirit of checks and balances. That agency is 
the National Labor Relations Board and acts as a check on employers and 
employees alike. It safeguards employees' rights to unionize or not to 
unionize if they so choose. It mediates allegations of unfair labor 
practices. It does all this independent of any outside influence.
  The Acting General Counsel of the NLRB is a man who is as nonpartisan 
and as independent as the agency for which he works. Last month, he 
issued a complaint against one of America's largest companies, Boeing. 
The complaint alleges that after Boeing workers in some States went on 
strike, the company retaliated by opening a new production line in a 
nonunion facility. That kind of retaliation, if that is what happened, 
is, of course, illegal.
  That is just the background. I am not here to judge the merits of the 
case. In fact, I am here to do the exact opposite--to remind the Senate 
that prejudging the case is not our job. That would overstep long-
established boundaries and weaken our system of checks and balances. 
Lately, though, some of our Republican colleagues have attacked the 
NLRB and have tried to poison the decisionmaking process. They are 
interfering with the case pending before a legal body. For example, 
every Republican Senator on the HELP Committee--and let's remind 
everyone, the ``l'' in HELP stands for ``labor''--sent a letter to the 
Acting General Counsel defending Boeing. The letter itself, sent 6 
weeks before a hearing even takes place, seems questionable at the very 
best, but these 10 Republicans went further. They went out of their way 
to link their request to the Acting General Counsel's pending 
nomination. If there were ever a case of intimidation, that sounds like 
it to me. But that is not all. Eight State attorneys general--all 
Republicans--also signed a letter to the Acting General Counsel calling 
on him to withdraw the complaint against Boeing--again, long before an 
administrative judge has had the opportunity to even look at the case, 
let alone review the case.
  I strongly encourage all of them to take a step back, my Republican 
colleagues on the HELP Committee and these attorneys general. We all 
know Republicans dislike organized labor. We know they disdain unions 
because unions demand fairness and equality from the big businesses 
Republicans so often shield at all costs. So let's be honest--
Republicans are threatened by unions. They are threatened because when 
a large organized group is so concerned with workers' rights, the 
members of that group vote in large numbers. And because Republicans 
and the big businesses they defend so often try to take away workers' 
rights, workers don't often vote Republican.

[[Page 6984]]

  This kind of interference is inappropriate, it is disgraceful and 
dangerous. We wouldn't allow threats to prosecutors or U.S. attorneys 
trying to stop them from moving forward with charges they see fit to 
bring to the courts, and we shouldn't stand for this. It may not be 
illegal, but it is no better than the retaliation and intimidation that 
is the fundamental question in this case, and it should stop.
  We need agencies such as the NLRB to be able to operate freely and 
without political pressures. We need to keep our independent agencies 
independent. This case is for them to decide, not for us to decide.
  Would the Chair now announce morning business.

                          ____________________