Unions Decry Federal Labor Board

    Colorado’s labor community wants to pull the plug on the federal government’s labor relations board, over complaints of recent “anti-worker” decisions.Complaining that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has become an anti-worker arm of corporate America, local union supporters are participating in a nationwide protest today across 13 cities to call for an end to the federal agency that decides unfair labor practice cases. The demonstration is set to take place in front of NLRB regional office in downtown Denver at noon today.

    According to Mike Cerbo, the former Democratic legislator and Colorado AFL-CIO executive director, four of the five board members appointed by President George Bush have corrupted the panel, by making decisions that would inhibit a worker’s legal right to organize a union.

    “They’re not impartial is the whole point, they’re just completely biased against workers,” says Cerbo, criticizing the Bush appointees.

    Robert J. Battista, chairman of the NLRB and a Bush appointee, also released a statement today, saying that “I regret that certain groups have chosen the path of shrill political rhetoric over reasoned debate…If these groups truly believe that our recent decisions are not consistent with the National Labor Relations Act, they are free to challenge those decisions in court.”

    More to come from Colorado Confidential.

    Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.

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