They say everything’s bigger in Texas. The latest proof is a federal court case that could lead to the biggest shakeup of American labor law in three quarters of a century – a shakeup that workers urgently need.
That’s the reality of a May decision by a U.S. district court in Fort Worth in the case Aunt Bertha v. National Labor Relations Board. The court ruled that the NLRB – the main government agency overseeing union organizing and collective bargaining in the private sector – is unconstitutional on multiple counts. This case seems destined to head to the Supreme Court, and if it does, Congress may have to rewrite federal labor law to meet workers’ needs in the 21st century.
The National Labor Relations Board has been a fixture of the federal government since the 1930s. The agency oversees unionization elections at workplaces, investigates and prosecutes unions and businesses for unfair labor practices, and issues regulations and decisions covering most of the private sector. Yet as the district court made clear, the NLRB has been unconstitutional from the start.
All told, the court found that the NLRB’s structure violates the Constitution in three major ways. First and foremost: Its leadership isn’t subject to the public’s control – which is to say, it’s undemocratic.
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