The president of the Chamber of Commerce unloaded on the White House Friday, telling a conference that the recent policy shifts by both the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality and the National Labor Relations Board on businesses franchising were orchestrated by the White House for purely political reasons.
The main reasons, Tom Donohue offered, were to help the White House’s allies in organized labor and the trial lawyer community.
Donohue, who heads the nation’s top business association, made the comments Friday at a forum hosted at the Chamber to discuss the board’s decision last December to include McDonald’s Corp. as a “joint employer” in a series of unfair labor practice complaints made against individual franchise restaurants. The board’s action has prompted alarm in the business community because it could vastly expand the liability faced by corporate franchisors.
“Clearly it is politically motivated because the changes are explicitly designed as a sop to the unions and the plaintiff’s bar. That’s the important thing,” Donohue said in impromptu remarks at the event. “The plaintiff’s bar are the guys with the money behind this. As soon as they can set up this deal then they have got all sorts of things to sue people about.”
Donohue then added that the board was acting “under probably the same kind of directions that were given to the FCC in how we deal with broadband — that is, directly from the White House.”
The board is the federal agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act. The FCC regulates radio, TV and cable and last month adopted the net neutrality rules, which prohibit internet access providers from blocking or slowing online traffic, or charging higher rates for better service.
Both agencies act independently but the board’s five members and commission’s five members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Both currently have a 3-2 Democratic majority, all of whom were nominated by President Obama. In each case, the party controlling the White House gets to have three seats and the other party gets two.
Donohue said the change in the joint employer standard was just the latest move by the administration “to overhaul labor law for their own purposes.”
He cited the board’s 2011 complaint against Boeing, alleging that opening a plant in South Carolina amounted to retaliation against its machinists’ union (the complaint was withdrawn when the union and Boeing reached a deal), a rule change last year — long sought by organized labor — to speed up the scheduling of workplace organizing votes and a board ruling earlier this month to require businesses to allow their employees to use company email systems for labor organizing.
Despite a 233-181 House vote Thursday to reverse the speedy election rule, Donohue said there was “no chance” Congress would succeed since the White House would veto it and the the Republicans lack the votes to override him.
Nevertheless, he was optimistic that his side would prevail, arguing they had most lawyers.
“If all else fails, if we have no other option, we’ll sue them. We spend half of our time trying to reduce the number of suits by class action lawyers and the other half of our time suing the hell out of the government. We sue the federal government and units of the federal government and some state governments, 180-90 times a year. We have got the best people and the best track record and the best results in this city,” he said.
