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Dear John,
Corporations headed by two of the world’s richest billionaires, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, are arguing in courts that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional.
The NLRB is the government agency that supervises union organizing and collective bargaining. It is, in effect, the referee of labor management relations.
Bezos’s Amazon and Musk’s SpaceX are betting that the current Supreme Court, with its extreme rightward tilt, will be sympathetic to arguments that were last put to rest nearly 90 years ago.
If they have their way, they could upend nearly a century’s worth of labor law, and dismantle the agency tasked with protecting workers’ well-established right to unionize.
Get the scoop on the billionaire backed challenges to labor law, as the richest men on the planet seek to disempower their own workers. Check out our new video to see my take on their maneuvers, then share it with your friends.
This is not the first time corporate interests have tried to strike down the National Labor Relations Board.
In 1937, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the NLRB and its decision to punish steel corporations that fired workers for trying to organize a union.
Now, Amazon and SpaceX are trotting out that same old union-busting agenda, claiming the NLRB combines judicial and executive functions in violation of the Constitution.
If they are successful, they could invalidate the entire labor movement, simply by disqualifying the referees that make sure workers' right to organize is protected.
Starbucks and Trader Joes, currently pursuing cases with similar legal arguments, could freely fire workers who try to organize. Workers would have no way to bargain for better wages or conditions. The robber barons would come out on top, as the state of workers' rights would be set back to a previous century.
Now, more than ever, we need to voice our support for unions. Join a union if you can, or join a picket line, and watch our video to see what else we can do.
Thank you for standing with workers.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media
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