Senate Republicans fail to overturn National Labor Relations Board union election improvements

Tue Apr 24, 2012 at 12:08 PM PDT

by Laura ClawsonFollow for Daily Kos Labor

Senate Republicans failed to move forward on a resolution aimed at overturning the National Labor Relations Board's rule streamlining union representation elections and reducing frivolous litigation. Republicans lost the vote on a motion to proceed, 45-54. David Waldman had noted that:

In years past, floating a veto threat might have been enough to convince some moderate Republican Senators not to bother voting for such a resolution, since it's ultimately doomed anyway. But since there aren't any of those around anymore, a veto threat probably just signals that voting for it can make you can look like a Freedom Kamikaze, flying straight into the teeth of the President's threat.

Indeed, the resolution's cosponsors included supposed moderates like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois. Democrats held firm, joined by Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). Business groups lobbied aggressively, with many claims of grievous hurt to small business. One small business owner, though, wrote in The Hill that:

I have strained to see how informing workers of their right to form a union or modernizing the outdated union election process will hurt my business. The connection simply isn’t there. These seemingly minor changes certainly do not create uncertainty for me and they will not affect my ability to create jobs. In fact, if the NLRB standardizes the election process, it seems to me that this will reduce uncertainty and turmoil in the workplace — especially for small businesses.

Don't expect this loss to stop the Republican campaign against the National Labor Relations Board, but that's one threat knocked down.