A telecommunications company's decision to expand its work force in Florida has triggered an investigation by the Obama administration's National Labor Relations Board. While the probe doesn't specifically target the firm, CenturyLink, it could set sweeping "new standards" for every company that intends to move jobs.
Much like Boeing Co., which plans to shift work from Washington state to South Carolina, CenturyLink figured it made good business sense to move jobs out of Nevada and into the Sunshine State.
But straight-up business decisions are running into political turbulence at the increasingly politicized and union-driven NLRB.
The Monroe, La.-based CenturyLink, which has gobbled up Embarq Corp. and Quest Communications in the past two years, has grown into one of the nation's biggest telecommunications conglomerates. When it decided to close a unionized Embarq call center in Las Vegas and expand a larger non-unionized facility in the Orlando area, the company was slapped with a complaint by the AFL-CIO.
The NLRB sided with CenturyLink-Embarq -- it was a net transfer of just 18 jobs to Florida, after all -- but board chairwoman Wilma Liebman, a longtime union lawyer, wasn't going to let the matter end there.
Seeing an opportunity to impose new union-friendly ground rules on companies going forward, Liebman wrote:
"The Board's task would be easier, and more importantly, the [National Labor Relations] Act's policy of promoting collective bargaining might well be better served, if employers were required to provide unions with requested information about relocation decisions whenever there was a reasonable likelihood that labor-cost concessions might affect the decision."
Noting that current "law does not compel the production of" information on relocation decisions to a union, Liebman wants companies to provide detailed economic justifications for any such moves.
Opening this Pandora's Box, NLRB associate general counsel Richard Siegel followed up with a May 10 memorandum in which his office expressed a desire to "examine the concerns raised by Chairman Liebman."
In other words: Game on.
Mark Molzen, spokesman for CenturyLink, said, "We believe the judge and the National Labor Relations Board came to the correct decision regarding the transfer of jobs from Las Vegas to Altamonte Springs in 2008. From time to time, CenturyLink balances workload to work force to meet the needs of the business."
Though the pending NLRB probe doesn't target CenturyLink per se, Siegel & Co. apparently believe the case provides cannon fodder for the board to pound other unionized companies. On the heels of the Boeing controversy, the Liebman-Siegel gambit has renewed corporate concerns about political meddling in the market.
Ronald Meisburg, a lawyer in Washington and the NLRB's general counsel under President George W. Bush, said on his blog last week that compelling businesses to give relocation details "would be a significant departure" from current practice.
It may "significantly burden decision-making," he stated.
Even so, Meisberg said forcing companies to provide information and bargain with unions won't deter complaints from labor about moving facilities,
"The irony is that Boeing reportedly did bargain with the union," Meisburg said. "You bargain and then what happens?"
Boeing met with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which then lodged a complaint with the NLRB.
NLRB spokeswoman Nancy Cleeland said it's too early to say what new policies may result from the agency's examination.
"This is an extremely early stage of a process that may lead to re-evaluating one aspect of board law with an eye toward making it more useful and efficient for all parties," she said in an e-mail.
But corporations -- as well as "right-to-work" states, including Florida -- are already feeling a chill from the NLRB.
Michael Eastman, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's executive director of labor law policy, said the May 10 Siegel memo is "an important decision that employers should be worried about."
Last month, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi co-authored with eight other attorneys general a letter opposing the NLRBs pending complaint against Boeing for unfair labor practices.
Florida has a vested interest in ensuring that businesses are not unfairly prevented from expanding their operations in right-to-work states, like ours, Bondi said.
U.S. Sen Marco Rubio, R-Fla., joined 34 other Senate Republicans in co-sponsoring the Job Protection Act (S 964), designed to ensure that companies can operate where they want and speak freely about costs linked to having unionized work forces.
Drawing up companion legislation in the House, Republicans say the NLRB's attempt to compel Boeing to shift production of its new 787 Dreamliner away from the roughly $750 million factory it has built and staffed in South Carolina could deter companies from establishing operations or expanding in the United States out of fear the agency will meddle.
"Where do you go if you want to make things? You go overseas," Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said in a Senate speech last week.
Michael Mahaffey, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, said the congressman concurs and considers the NLRB's action a "travesty."
"Congressman Rooney not only has serious constitutional questions about the NLRB's decision, he believes its action poses significant threats to job creation and economic growth in states like Florida," Mahaffey said.
George Cecala, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, said the congressman believes that the NLRB has "stepped far beyond its bounds by questioning the right of states to establish their own labor laws."
And labor lawyers outside the NLRB question whether the board has a legal leg to stand on in trying to federalize private business decisions.
The Boeing and CenturyLink cases illustrate how companies are migrating to more business-friendly climates, and why that movement has Obama's NLRB and the union-dependent Democrats scrambling to stanch the flow.
New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the consulting firm of Haver Analytics show that private business creation was 46 percent higher in right-to-work states (497,000 new businesses) than in forced-union states (340,000 new businesses) from 1993 to 2009.
"That's a remarkable difference, given that about 60 percent of American workers reside in non right-to-work states," the Wall Street Journal opined last week.
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Reach Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (772) 801-5341 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
