Editorials

More union bashing

Oct 19, 2006 1:58 PM

The Bush presidency continued its effort to inflict death-by-a-thousand-cuts to the labor movement when the anti-union National Labor Relations Board handed down another outrageous decision earlier this month. It ruled that workers who act as supervisors on the most temporary of assignments can be exempted from belonging to a union.

Specifically, the ruling concerned those registered nurses who may assign others to shifts or tasks. The board, the majority of whom are now Bush appointees, determined that these nurses are supervisors and thus ineligible to join a union. It is a ruling that could have broad ramifications; it could affect any worker who makes out a schedule or in any way directs another worker. The ruling does not affect public employees, but is already being used as an instrument for further union bashing across the country.

This is the same NLRB, let us not forget, that ruled that graduate assistants in colleges are not workers, thereby undermining the efforts of NYU graduate students to bargain a second contract, an effort that had been supported by many union leaders including UFT President Randi Weingarten and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

The latest ruling will be appealed — but it is just one more indication of the anti-union climate that prevails under the current administration in Washington and why the 2006 midterm elections are so important.