Blog is back up; Right targets NLRB

A quick post, now that the blog is back up.  (Thanks to D&S subscriber and WordPress expert Shaun S. for helping us figure out what went haywire and getting us back up and running.)

(1) Boeing NLRB decision: Readers may know about the recent NLRB ruling against Boeing (here's a recent interview from the Real News Network explaining the background;  and here's a piece from Labor Notes about an earlier stage of the NLRB decision).

Well, it appears that right-wingers from South Carolina (where Boeing illegally set up a plant in retaliation against union strikers in Washington State, according to the NLRB's ruling) and beyond are criticizing the NLRB.  Here is a piece from The Hill, and another from Firedoglake.

What is especially creepy to me about this is the rhetoric of it, with Rand Paul asking whether Obama has an "enemies list":

“Mr. President, do you have an enemies list? Is this decision based on  the fact that South Carolina appears to be a Republican state, has two  Republican senators? Is this decision based on the fact that South  Carolina is a right-to-work state? Are they on your enemies list?” Paul  said.

(2) Victory on Beitbart Smear: The creepiness of the rhetoric around the attack on the NLRB reminds me of the recent hoax perpetrated by Andrew Beitbart against our pal Judy Ancel and her colleague Don Giljum (which we reported on here); both involve right-wingers accusing labor, or labor supporters, of traditionally right-wing tactics (violence, intimidation, enemies lists). Breitbart posted spliced together videos of Ancel and Giljum (taken from an intranet UMKC website) apparently showing them instructing labor studies students about the use of violence as a tactic in labor struggles.  What is striking about these claims about "union thuggery" is that if you go to the post by Breitbart at biggovernment.com, the video is quite obviously patched together, and even so is mild in what it portrays the labor educators as advocating. Meanwhile, the comments by right-wingers on the video are full of real threats of violence, calls for violence, etc.  I think we need to revive the phrase "right-wing thuggery."

In any case, there was at least a partial victory in this case, as UMKC officials reviewed the video and sided with Ancel and Giljum.  Giljum, whose future as an instructor at UMKC had been in doubt, was reinstated.  Here is a piece from Labor Notes about the UMKC chancellor's statement. We will be covering all this for our July/August issue, probably with a comment by Judy Ancel.

--Chris Sturr