Senate Leaders Must Move President’s NLRB Nominations to the Senate Floor

Apr 11, 2013

CWA commended President Barack Obama for putting forward three additional nominations to the National Labor Relations Board this week. These nominations, together with two previously announced, would restore the NLRB to full status and will ensure that a functioning NLRB can enforce workers' rights on the job.

The NLRB is important. It protects workers in the American workplace. It's where workers turn when they are fired and their free speech is threatened.

Now it's up to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate leaders to move the President's nominations to the Senate floor and work to have them confirmed.

"With this Senate, we must assume we'll have a fight," said CWA President Larry Cohen on the Ed Schultz Show.

The next step is for the nominations, as a package, to be vetted by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee, then moved to the floor.

"However, since the Senate rules weren't changed in January, 60 votes will be necessary just to get the nominations on the floor," Cohen said.

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many of its corporate members would prefer that the NLRB not function at all. As a result of Republican obstructionism in the Senate, 85 million private sector workers have no place to go for workplace justice," he said.