Jordan Barab: Bush Labor Board Takes Organizing Rights Away From Millions Of Nurses And Other Workers

(Courtesy of Majikthise)

Bush Labor Board Takes Organizing Rights Away From Millions Of Nurses And Other Workers
by Jordan Barab (Happy Anniversary Jordan!)
Confined Space

This afternoon, George W. Bush’s National Labor Relations Board, in a party-line 3-2 decision, took away bargaining rights for millions of American nurses and other workers. The Board's findings were contained in its long-awaited Kentucky River decision which focused on whether certain nurses, called charge nurses, should be considered “supervisors” who are excluded from having the right to organize unions.

The origin of the supervisory exclusion was the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act which amended the National Labor Relations Act. The original National Labor Relations Act gave all employees the right to form unions and required that employers recognize certified employee unions and bargain in good faith. The Taft-Hartley Act, however, excluded supervisors, defined as

any individual having authority, in the interest of the employer, to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if in connection with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment.

However, even the anti-union authors of the Taft-Hartley act made it clear that it did not intend to deny coverage to professional employees, lead workers or others whose jobs do not include major managerial responsibility to hire, fire and discipline other employees. Yet, the Republican-appointed majority today ignored that context, essentially finding favorable definitions for in the dictionary, rather than from clear Congressional intent.

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