NLRB Defunding Fails, But Agency Remains GOP Target

February 18, 2011

The Wall Street Journal

Melanie Trottman

A House Republican-led effort to defund the National Labor Relations Board failed Thursday, but the agency remains a target for spending cuts that would slash its annual budget by $50 million, or nearly one-fifth.

The amendment to defund the agency failed during consideration of a broader measure to fund the federal government through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. The broader measure aims to cut spending by $61 billion, and includes the $50 million reduction to the NLRB. The bill is expected to pass late Thursday or early Friday morning.

NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman said Thursday that the cuts would amount to 18% of the agency’s annual budget, requiring it to furlough all staff members for 55 days.

“We don’t administer programs so there are none to cut. We’re an adjudicatory agency, so all we could really cut is salaries,” Ms. Liebman said. “It would certainly force us to severely curtail all of our operations,” including investigating charges of unfair labor practices, conducting union elections and trying cases, she said.

The effort to defund the NLRB was led by House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Tom Price (R., Ga.), who said that cutting the agency’s funding “can save taxpayer dollars and help protect American job creators from an out-of-control agency.” Only Republicans voted for the measure to defund the agency, which was defeated 250-176, with 60 Republicans joining 190 Democrats in opposition.

Ms. Liebman said that while she was “relieved” the amendment failed, the fight isn’t over. “Obviously, we’re disturbed that it got 176 votes,” she said.

Republican lawmakers and business groups might not mind a slowdown at the agency. They say that under President Barack Obama, the NLRB has been pushing a union-driven agenda that has put employers at a disadvantage, particularly in union organizing drives.

Republicans and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have pinned much of the board’s recent shift in ideology on the addition of Craig Becker, a former Union lawyer who Mr. Obama put on the board last March using a recess appointment after his nomination failed to get 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

With Mr. Becker as one of three Democratic votes controlling the board, it has reopened matters previously decided in favor of employers under prior administrations.

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