Democrats blasted Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a letter Thursday for reversing the government’s position in a major workers’ rights legal battle headed to the Supreme Court.
The lawmakers said Sessions’ decision in the case National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil was a “troubling departure” from the Justice Department’s previous position.
The dispute involves whether workers can be obligated as a condition of employment to waive their rights to engage in class-action lawsuits in favor of arbitration. The NLRB, the nation’s main labor law enforcement agency, contends that such provisions violate the National Labor Relations Act. Under former President Barack Obama, the Justice Department backed the labor board. But in a brief filed earlier this month, the administration said the government no longer supports that position.
“We are foremost alarmed by the department’s decision to side with large corporate interests against hard-working Americans. Murphy Oil concerns the statutorily protected rights of workers to hold unscrupulous employers accountable for violating the law on a collective basis. Rather than deferring to the board — the chosen instrument that Congress has charged with protecting workers against unfair labor practices — the department now echoes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which filed a substantively similar brief in the case,” the Democrats wrote.
The letter was signed by Reps. John Conyers of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Bobby Scott of Virginia, ranking Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee and Hank Johnson of Georgia.
Business groups prefer arbitration because it allows disputes to be settled quickly and quietly. Groups such as the Chamber of Commerce argue the practice is legal under the Federal Arbitration Act. The board contends it violates the labor relations act because it takes away the ability of workers to put pressure on employers.
The board has acted aggressively to stop businesses from pursuing arbitration despite having been knocked down at the appeals court level several times. The courts have generally held that the board has jurisdiction only over National Labor Relations Act matters and that particular law is silent regarding arbitration. The labor board nevertheless has continued to pursue cases on the grounds that only the Supreme Court could tell it not to — a legal policy known as “nonaquiesence.”
The labor board kept pushing in the hope that a different appeals court would rule in its favor, which would force the Supreme Court to intervene. That strategy paid off last year when the board won cases in the 9th and 7th circuits. The justices put it on their docket Jan. 13.
In an amicus brief filed in the case earlier this month, the Justice Department said, “The board is not entitled to deference when it determines how the NLRA should be harmonized with other federal statutes — here, the FAA (Federal Arbitration Act).”
“The department’s stunning, and virtually unprecedented, decision to undermine the government’s interest in a case before the court is … deeply troubling. The department may, of course, change its views on a legal matter or administrative policy following a change in administration so long as it provides a reasoned explanation for the change. But we are unaware of any modern examples of the solicitor general actively undermining a federal agency’s position in a case before the Supreme Court,” the Democrats said.
A Justice Department spokesman could not be reached for comment.
