The key fea­ture of the bill would neuter the board (already too weak by many stan­dards) by man­dat­ing that it be made up of three Repub­li­cans and three Democ­rats — a pre­scrip­tion appar­ent­ly designed to ensure per­ma­nent par­ti­san grid­lock. It would also restrict the author­i­ty of the board’s chief pros­e­cu­tor and cut the oper­at­ing bud­get of the agency if cas­es weren’t decid­ed in a time­ly man­ner. Lar­ry Cohen, Pres­i­dent of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers of Amer­i­ca (CWA), remarks that the bill would mean ​“the NLRB just can’t do any­thing any more — and that’s exact­ly what they [Repub­li­cans] want.”

This week, Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors intro­duced a bill they call the ​“The Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board Reform Act.” Its chances of pas­sage are very slim, but that’s beside the point: The GOP wants to empha­size its dis­plea­sure with Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s appoint­ments of labor-friend­ly board mem­bers who thwart busi­ness­es’ attempts to keep unions out of their workplaces.

“This leg­is­la­tion will turn the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board from an advo­cate to the umpire it ought to be,” stat­ed Sen. Lamar Alexan­der (R‑Tennessee), in intro­duc­ing the bill joint­ly with Sen­ate Minor­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell (R‑Kentucky). ​“The board is too par­ti­san, swing­ing from one side to the oth­er with each new admin­is­tra­tion — and while this didn’t start with Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, it’s got­ten worse as he’s loaded the board with union insiders.”

Alexander’s state­ment came one week after the Senate’s Health, Edu­ca­tion, Labor and Pen­sions (HELP) Com­mit­tee held a hear­ing on Obama’s nom­i­na­tion of Sharon Block to fill an upcom­ing vacan­cy on the NLRB. The hear­ing is appar­ent­ly what prompt­ed Sen. Alexan­der to intro­duce the bill. Repub­li­can mem­bers of the com­mit­tee were polite to Block but open­ly hos­tile to her nomination.

Block, an unas­sum­ing career bureau­crat, has done lit­tle per­son­al­ly to attract oppo­si­tion. She has worked as a non-par­ti­san attor­ney on the NLRB staff, and was also employed by the HELP Com­mit­tee from 2006 to 2009, when it was run by late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Dur­ing her 18-month tenure on the board in 2012 – 2013, she vot­ed with oth­er Democ­rats in con­tro­ver­sial cas­es, but this sort of vot­ing pat­tern has been the norm for decades for appointees from either par­ty. Her time on the board was cut short when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Noël Can­ning v. NLRB case last year that Block’s recess appoint­ment was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, forc­ing her depar­ture.

Alexan­der, who serves as the high­est-rank­ing Repub­li­can on the pan­el, set the tone of the hear­ing by begin­ning with a long com­plaint about Block’s tenure on the board. Block ​“chose … to cre­ate con­fu­sion and insta­bil­i­ty” by accept­ing the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al recess appoint­ment in the first place, Sen. Alexan­der claimed, and ​“revealed a trou­bling lack of respect for the Con­sti­tu­tion” by con­tin­u­ing to serve even after a low­er fed­er­al court had ruled against the recess appoint­ment. Fur­ther­more, she ​“demon­strat­ed a will­ing­ness to tilt the play­ing field toward orga­nized labor” in her vot­ing record as an NLRB mem­ber, he charged.

Despite the crit­i­cisms by Sen. Alexan­der and oth­er Repub­li­cans, Oba­ma qui­et­ly reap­point­ed Block to the NLRB in July. If con­firmed, she will fill a vacan­cy cre­at­ed by the retire­ment of Nan­cy J. Schif­fer, whose term expires in December.

Block has thus become the most recent locus of long-stand­ing par­ti­san dis­agree­ment over the NLRB. This was demon­strat­ed clear­ly last week with a num­ber of Sen­ate HELP Com­mit­tee Democ­rats — Chair Tom Harkin (Iowa), Chris Mur­phy (Con­necti­cut), Bob Casey Jr. (Penn­syl­va­nia) and Eliz­a­beth War­ren (Mass­a­chu­setts)—all speak­ing in her defense, while unfriend­ly ques­tion­ing came from Repub­li­cans Alexan­der, Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Tim Scott (South Carolina).

CWA’s Cohen says Alexander’s remarks about Block are a gross mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the facts, and his new bill is evi­dence of his anti-work­er bias.

The attacks on Block are ​“pure vic­tim­iza­tion,” Cohen says. Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate have con­sis­tent­ly delayed and obstruct­ed Obama’s appoint­ments to fed­er­al offices, he says, and the recess appoint­ment of Block was sim­ply a response to this obstruc­tion. What­ev­er polit­i­cal dif­fer­ences exist between Oba­ma and Sen. Alexan­der, he adds, it is unfair to impugn the integri­ty and pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions of Block.

Accord­ing to Cohen, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are aim­ing to delay or derail Block’s nom­i­na­tion because they fun­da­men­tal­ly object to any gov­ern­ment action that favors work­ers or unions over the finan­cial inter­ests of busi­ness. ​“Let’s face it, peo­ple like Alexan­der don’t believe in the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Act” — which estab­lished the NLRB in 1936 — ​“and they would pre­fer that the NLRB do noth­ing,” he says. ​“That’s why they are against Sharon Block, just as they have been against every Demo­c­rat that Oba­ma has nominated.”

Cohen says it is hard to pre­dict whether Block would be con­firmed by the full Sen­ate in time for her to suc­ceed Schif­fer when she departs in Decem­ber. If the five-mem­ber board is reduced to four — two Democ­rats and two Repub­li­cans — the result could be gridlock.

New Sen­ate rules pre­vent the indef­i­nite delay of appoint­ments, so Cohen believes Block will ulti­mate­ly be con­firmed on a strict par­ty-line vote. But some 300 oth­er nom­i­nees for oth­er fed­er­al posi­tions are also await­ing a vote, he notes, so no quick action is anticipated.

The CWA is a spon­sor of In These Times. Spon­sors have no role in edi­to­r­i­al content.