Alexander: NLRB Needs to Be “Umpire Rather Than Advocate”

***

"I am going to be looking for long-term solutions on a restructuring of the National Labor Relations Board that will ensure that it is more likely to be an umpire and an adjudicator than an advocate, whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican.”– Lamar Alexander

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18—The senior Republican on the U.S. Senate labor committee today said he would be working on a way to restructure the National Labor Relations Board so that it is “an umpire rather than an advocate.”

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R. Tenn) said: “I am going to be looking for long-term solutions on a restructuring of the National Labor Relations Board that will ensure that it is more likely to be an umpire and an adjudicator rather than an advocate, whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican.”

He continued: “I’ve expressed here before my concern about the ability of the National Labor Relations Board to be a fair adjudicator—an umpire rather than advocate. That didn’t start with the Obama administration, but it’s gotten worse with this administration as it has moved toward the side of union advocacy with such things as ambush elections and micro-unions and undermining state right-to-work laws.”

Before today’s committee vote on Richard Griffin Jr. to be general counsel at the board, Alexander said: “Mr. Griffin has the legal credentials but his background as a union advocate and his work as general counsel for one of the major unions doesn’t do anything to help me believe that he will improve the situation at the NLRB. I can count, so I know that the Democratic majority will report Mr. Griffin’s name to the floor and that he will have an up or down vote and will be confirmed, but I’m going to vote no.”

# # #