It was just a few months ago when Obama’s National Labor Relations Board ruled that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union had engaged in union busting and ordered the union to stop harassing its own union organizers for wanting their own union.

Now, a Teamsters union local in Memphis is fighting its two clerical workers from unionizing with the Steelworkersand–again, the Obama labor board is having none of it.

In November, the regional office of the NLRB held a hearing to determine whether or not two clerical workers employed by Teamsters local 667 should be allowed to unionize by the United Steelworkers International Union.

Like the vast majority of employers, the Teamsters hired an outside lawyer.

In the NLRB’s Decision and Direction of Election [PDF], the Acting Regional Director notes that the Employer [the Teamsters] tried to claim that one of the two clerical employees the Steelworkers is trying to unionize should be ineligible because she is confidential.

In its brief, the Employer [the Teamsters] takes the position that one of the two office clerical employees,   [name]  , is a confidential employee and should be excluded from the petitioned-for unit. The Employer also asserts that the petition should be dismissed because a one-person bargaining unit consisting, of the other office clerical employee,   [name]  , is not appropriate. The Petitioner asserts that neither clerical employee is a confidential employee and that the petitioned-for unit, as amended, is appropriate. The Petitioner [the Steelworkers] asserts that neither clerical employee is a confidential employee and that the petitioned-for unit, as amended, is appropriate.

If the NLRB found that the one employee was a confidential employee, she would have been excluded from being in a bargaining unit and the unit would have been inappropriate since there must be two or more.

The Acting Regional Director found that the individual was not confidential and, as a result, order an election to be held.

The case didn’t end there, however.

The Teamsters deployed their outside attorney to file a lengthy appeal (known as a Request for Review) to the NLRB in Washington.

On December 31, the union NLRB members in Washington denied the Teamsters request for review as it raised “no substantial issues warranting review.”

While the NLRB may not have found any substantial issues warranting a review, here are a couple:

Why is the Teamsters union spending thousands of dollars on hiring lawyers to fight unionization of their own workers?

Couldn’t the Teamster bosses just practiced what they preached and voluntarily recognized the Steelworkers and bargain a…you know…fair contract?

Note: Unions usually call these types of tactics “union busting”…Except, apparently, when it’s unions engaging in said tactics.

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“Truth isn’t mean. It’s truth.”
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

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Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com