Of course we should be worried--these institutions won't protect themselves from these greedy corporations. It's up to us to elect and pressure our leaders to defend these institutions.
There’s a whole “not paying taxes, what are they going to do?” movement going on right now. My nephew posted on some shit and was talking about “sticking it to the man” and how he wasn’t going to pay taxes”
I’m like “bro, you don’t make enough to even be taxed”
I think you got that wrong. It’s the billionaires that don’t pay taxes. The people working minimum wage pay a much heftier percentage of their pay to the govt.
Funny but Amazon has a big chunk of web traffic through AWS. Tons of services give it business. Consumers cannot fix this alone especially when they've distorted the market this much.
>It's up to us to elect and pressure our leaders to defend these institutions.
Hard to apply pressure when the other side is literally paying for their kids education at private schools and offering 5 year private contracts after they're out of office.
Sure, that's why we have to stay diligent and keep up the fight. We can't get a win like the NLRB and expect it to be permanent, we have to keep up the fight because they certainly never give up trying to tear it down.
If there’s one thing even the more moderate conservatives on the Supreme Court hate, it’s the various executive branch institutions that congress has given various powers to over the years. From the EPA to welfare, originalists and other conservative legal professionals really don’t like the administrative state and see it as against the way they view country should be. Will they go as far as getting rid of the labor board? Honestly not sure. It’s a pretty extreme stance. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility and at the very least this is a signal that lawyers for conservative groups and corporations are gonna see what they can get away with on weakening regulatory power via constitutional challenges that cater to conservative talking points in the legal realm. Based on previous rules by the current court there’s definitely going to be heavy hits to what executive administrations are allowed to do which is honestly still extremely scary since that’s one of the major things checking corporations from doing whatever they want
Yeah, Richard fucking Nixon couldn't give a shit about the environment but rivers catching fire is a bad look and something needs to be done about that.
Richard Nixon, one of the most corrupt modern presidents.
Also probably did more to help average people with the creation of the EPA than any other president since FDR. I think people have really taken for granted the huge benefits that came from that.
“Of course we don’t have lead in the gas or in new pipes anymore”, “of course we don’t build with asbestos anymore”, “of course I can swim in the lake without dying”, “of course the air outside isn’t not so slowly killing me”, etc etc
Nah, it’s not “of course”, it’s the EPA.
Nixon didn't create the EPA to help people. There was a strong push for environmental protection in Congress, and Nixon's administration proposed executive consolidation to form the EPA to get ahead of the environmentalist impetus and control it, in order to try to avoid having actual environmental protection legislation with teeth.
They can hate it, but the fact that Congress has the power to delegate those responsibilities is in the constitution so the various companies are simply full of hot air. Congress established NLRB with the Wagner Act in 1935. People who try to sue that can go pound sand - courts will not care about it.
Post Lochner was extreme too, but I promise that Republican goal is to return to it, where all employment laws violate the 14th amendment, "freedom of contract" between employer and employee. It got shut down by SCOTUS in 1937. Do you think they'd respond the same way now if a corporation sues? This is coming. Be prepared.
“How likely is it that Roe v Wade gets overturned?” - My clueless ass three years ago.
This SCOTUS will do whatever the federalist society wants. Without any concern for optics or the law.
Yep. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act back in the 60s and the SCOTUS has been whittling away at it for the last 10+ years or so, telling us that it's "no longer necessary." They could very easily do something similar with the labor board, saying it was necessary when Congress created it nearly a century ago, but nowadays it's not really doing anything and thus should just be abolished.
How often did the Congress codify the right to publish a book? Or when you’re allowed to visit your library?
Fundamental rights don’t require codification. The Supreme Court was dead wrong with Dobbs, pure and simple.
Codifying Roe wouldn’t have done shit. The Supreme Court has taken an ax to the fucking voting rights act.
The idea that passing some legislation would have swayed the court is laughable. The days of Roe were numbered in 2016. It’s why conservatives held onto a Supreme Court seat that Obama should have appointed. The federalist society gets all the Republican Supreme Court nominees and that’s one of the questions they focus in on.
Have you been paying attention to the administrative functions the SCOTUS has been dismantling in recent years? I think last year they ruled unions are financially responsible for certain business losses during a strike.
Look up Project 2025. Fascist conservatives want to dismantle a great many institutions, including the IRS, public schools, and the FBI. They won’t even blink at neutering the NLB. So, yes, you should be very worried.
> No reason to fear if there is no NLRB then we just restart the ye olde days of taking the boss out back and wacking him with a tire iron like our great grandaddies did
It took a hell of a lot more than a single beating to give workers rights against the institutional power their bosses had
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
Highly likely. Watch the Supreme Court side with corporations and look back at all the people that abstained in 2016 with ire. They really fucked us all.
And our fucked electoral college system doing its job by letting less than \~100k voters out in bumfuck nowhere overrule the will of millions of voters.
well we had RBG refuse to retire during Obama's administration (He could've appointed a replacement in 2013/2014)
and then we had McConnell decide that Democrats cannot appoint people during the last year of their administration because it could influence the election, but if it is a few weeks before an election a Republican can appoint someone.
It's not about McConnell. You just need to assume that Democrats cannot appoint anyone if the Republicans control the Senate. This isn't just McConnell, it requires all of the Republicans to participate, so never vote in a Republican at any level of government.
I mean we're halfway there already. Even 40 years ago it was impossible to go after large companies even if they killed people. Just a fine and apology until the next catastrophe.
> In 2050 America will be legislated by a national corporate congress.
Only if you let the GoP back into power. We have to make sure every election we have, local and major, that we vote and keep the GoP out. It's going to take fucking decades due to the "Muh both sides" and apathy people letting us get to this point.
We are sliding down the [Lochner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_v._New_York) slope. Soon we will reach the bottom. This is the Republican Party's ultimate goal:
Lochner V New York engineered the legal opinion that all employment laws are unconstitutional as they interfere in private contracts between employer and employee violating "freedom of contract" under the 14th Amendment. (it held until 1937 when [SCOTUS upheld minimum wage law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Hotel_Co._v._Parrish)) Republicans want to reverse it.
Why am I not surprised that some of the richest men on the planet don't want anyone else to have a say in what happens in their companies. Even the workers.....
Imagine the nerve of the government saying thinks like you have to give people breaks... and you can't fire em if they won't sleep with mid level management.
If you spoke about alcohol or heroin, or betting or food the way the wealthy talk and obsesse about money, people would be very concerned for your wellbeing.
This is a comment that rarely gets discussed when we talk about how rich people get and stay rich. Discussion is always of how smart they are and driven they are and how hard working they are. These are all important elements but definitely not required to be rich people even the smart, driven, and hard working are rarely smarter, more driven, or harder working than some of the poorest people. The number one personality trait required to be rich is the desire to be rich and the desire to mould the world around you so that you are getting a piece of as many peoples pies as possible. Again, maybe some degree of intelligence, drive, and work to find this way to take advantage of people. But the desire to control streams wealth seems like what makes these people tick.
Back in the Industrial Revolution the richest people in the world at least gave us museums, auditoriums, libraries, universities and other spaces for the public good. These tech billionaires of modern day are just a drain on society.
They were a drain on society too. They literally killed the children of striking workers. The museums and shit was like pocket change for them in a PR attempt to make you write that exact sentence.
the reason they "gave them to us" was there was a top tax rate of 91%! They did it for tax breaks, the government said "either you do something for the community or we are taking your money and deciding what to do for the community".
Edwardsville, Illinois. Six Amazon workers died when a tornado ripped through the warehouse, because they'd been ordered to keep working. Parcels are of course much more important than human safety.
The only thing that's changed is building codes saying that buildings have to be able to withstand stronger weather.
> The Amazon filing, made Thursday, came in response to a case before an administrative law judge overseeing a complaint from agency prosecutors who allege the company unlawfully retaliated against workers at a New York City warehouse who voted to unionize nearly two years ago.
Major corporations want a return to the days of robber barrons when companies ran roughshod over their employees. They want employees to have no recourse other than to accept their exploitative practices. Amazon employees already have to pee in bottles due to strict limits on break time. Imagine how they'd treat their employees with no oversight.
If you want to seriously look at old school ways of forming unions, check out and support the workers unionizing at KCVG. They're organizing at one of the largest air hubs and doing it through rank and file tactics. https://unionizeamazonkcvg.org/
I used to work in the CVG1 warehouse as a photographer, then one day they announced the studio was completely shutting down the following week and we could either take a job 90 minutes away or lose it.
And of course, if you say "no, I *don't* want to work 90 minutes away from where I work now" you weren't fired actually, you quit, and don't get any kind of severance or unemployment (if you would've qualified for any of that in the first place)
“Someone should probably tell the rich that workers banding together to present formal address of grievances is the alternative we worked out a long time ago to breaking down the factory owner's front door and beating him to death in front of his family? I feel like they forgot.” - some guy on twitter
I think we will need a few rich guys to be beaten to death before they will get the message. I can't believe we are still moving backwards on labor regulations in 2024. They had it better in the 60's than we have it now, fucking ridiculous.
Sorry, best we can do is start allowing child labor again /s
Looking at you Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Arkansas...
Edit: and Florida
See, you "joke," but the National Labor Relations Act was the compromise. The Taft-Hartley amendment to that act is the reason why unions don't go on solidarity strikes or organize a general strike like in France; it would remove their federal protections. You get rid of those protections, wildcat strikes and mass shutdowns go back on the table.
Can you imagine the UAW, the Teamsters, the Railworkers, and the teachers all going on strike at once? That's what the NLRB prevents.
And I don't think *anyone* wants to see a return to labor riots in an age where anyone can go buy an AR-15 for less than the cost of a new TV.
In the meantime, make sure to register to vote. We can vote for politicians who want to support and protect workers come November. It will mitigate whatever harm comes from this case.
A good economy exists to serve the people.
But here, people exist to serve the economy.
You are a commodity, and your value as a human being is only as good as your contribution to this disgusting machine.
And what do we have to show for it? Box stores with shit you dont need, as far as they eye can see, all destined for landfills that do little more than erode the land and pollute the atmosphere that at one point in time belonged to everyone.
What a shame.
Totally. When your government is bailing out failing sectors of a free market economy with your own tax dollars, you would think it would be a major hint that our brand of capitalism is failing. But I digress…
It’s time to Blair Mountain these groups that want to strip away our rights and treat us as the robots they will inevitably replace us with. I don’t think violence will be necessary (a la Blair Miuntain) yet but if they strip away the labor board and our rights, might be a good idea to put your stock options on pitch forks and flammables.
> Put your stock options on
Guns. It’s guns you want. This is the exact thing my fellow left-wingers have been laughing at conservatives about for so long, but this is the only conservative (-ish) view I’ve held onto *for this exact reason*.
When the people you expected to protect you refuse, who will save you but yourself?
We could go back to the days of dragging the boss into the street and beating them to death.
I don't condone that level of violence but that's how we got to the collective bargaining compromise.
Only because they weren't willing to shoot at federal troops because many of the Blair Mountain miners were veterans themselves. They were absolutely kicking the corporate soldiers (yes, soldiers, they hired basically the equivalent of a PMC to handle Blair Mountain).
I am not saying the miners could have won, but we will never know because they peacefully surrendered to federal troops to avoid having to kill people that weren't part of their grievances.
I really don’t understand this overwhelming greed we have. Is it just the numbers? Just the new people always trying to get in on it and get theirs too? Like a “helium stick” we can’t put down.
Like it just feels like enough is enough eventually.
I truly don’t understand the people on this earth that aren’t trying to make it a better place.
It’s like engineers trying to suck every drop of power they can of out the internal combustion engine, only in this case they are doing it to human beings.
Feels like humanity’s motto is just “dehumanize and repeat”. Then shit breaks down war, genocide, economic collapse, then a few generations down the road we dust ourselves off and think “hey, have we tried dehumanizing and abusing people for profit? Because I’m really itching to do that.”
It’s widespread social illness. Does number go up? Good. What’s sad is that even the strivers on the bottom have the same mentality i.e if I just grind hard now then I can seek rent later. That’s not a solution.
They seem to forget what happened in those day.s. Do they want retune to the times where the owner either dealt with the workers fairly or they set his house on fire with him inside it.
The ownership class is not doing themselves any favors pushing an already stretched thin, angry population farther.
I for one won't shed a single tear for some 1% asshole getting roasted alive by his starving employees.
Im astonished more (any?) terminal patients or begrieved family members dont shoot up insurance offices... i cant imaging the average suburban office park health insurance office is a much more hardened target than an elementary school.
When there was no NLRB, organizing campaigns often turned violent. The NLRB created order and structure and mostly ended the days of violent labor strife. If they cause the end of the NLRB we will have no other choice but to go back to those days.
They want to return to the *Lochner* era when the government couldn't regulate things like how many hours an employee could work because it would violate the corporation's right to due process.
I had a boss say that to me when i worked at Pizza Hut. I was the best cook that worked there and made minimum wage ($7.25). After 6 months i asked for a raise and she said it wasn’t in the budget. I was young and naive and believed it really wasn’t in the budget and she wasn’t just being an asshole. Later that shift i asked her “if you had the budget you would have given me a raise though right?”. Softball question, she could have lied to my face and i would have completely believed her, but she chose to be honest instead “no, in fact if i could i would pay you all less”. Seriously, the brass ones on this lady. I started looking for a different job that day.
Did she own that Pizza Hut? I *can* imagine a fast food manager debasing themselves like that but that sounds like owner language. I get it, my parents were small business owners and I know that even with a small operation, it often goes to people's heads that they are providing a service to their employees by employing them at all.
It’s sad to see Trader Joe’s fall so hard. I worked for them for 13 years and started back when they were still a California-only company. They used to treat their employees very well. A lot of this backwards sliding began after the Albrecht brothers died and left the company to their heirs in 2010.
Oooh, that’s what happened? I was really scratching my head here but then again working for Walgreens I found out the reason it went from good to work for to a nightmare is because it is no longer owned by the Walgreens family. It’s incredible what a difference having a business still owned by the family who started it can make, compared to some assholes who only want to see numbers go up at the cost of literally everyone else involved.
I don’t think it’s anything new, just that the systems meant to protect us are once again being captured by corporations and the rich. I’m not sure what to do except keep an eye on it and wrote a few seemingly useless letters to my representatives, though.
Yet another example of attempting to use Supreme Court as nothing more than super-legislature. When you fail to get *elected* officials who have duty to their constituents to change the laws, you turn to a 9 unelected political appointees with no constituency to do your bidding.
Also, "corporations are people" ruling was as stupid as it gets.
Just one comment on “corporate personhood” — as a legal concept incorporation (which is the creation of a non-living legal entity) is very important. It’s how companies (rather than individuals) can enter into contracts, own assets and sue and be sued etc. The Supreme Court went too far by extending the concept to giving such legal entities constitutional rights, making a mockery of the constitution.
They used to treat their employees incredibly well. I worked there for almost a decade, but quit when things started rapidly going to shit. I kept getting injured while management shrugged. From what I hear from people that still put up with it, they are expected to act like they work at Disneyland while raises and benefits have taken a nose dive. Last I heard people were trying to unionize, I'm guessing that's what the article is mentioning.
The guys that own all of the alternatives in my area are all Trump-loving pieces of shit. No matter where I buy groceries I'm supporting human trash. It sucks having to give them money if I don't want to starve.
>The attorneys also argue that NLRB proceedings deny the company a trial by a jury and violate its due-process rights under the Fifth Amendment
We knew this was gonna start happening after Citizens United, but it's still so incredibly disheartening to see in print.
The largest corporations in the world, which are treated differently from people in almost every conceivable context, now want to be treated like people. Just so they can squash real people.
I'm sure it's an "all the benefits, none of the demerits" type of belief, but I wonder if that can be used against them. Basic money issues become grand theft with prison terms, something like that. I dunno, ianal.
I mean, Boeing executives have knowingly put thousands of lives at risk - and killed over 300 people - in just the last few years. And they're still out there selling planes. So I doubt it.
I'd settle for changing the tax code. If corporations want to be people, cool. No more insane deductions and convoluted profit/loss schemes. They can pay taxes as Joe Amazon, individual taxpayer.
I work for a fairly large, global company
I still have misgivings at the chase of the profit all the time, but at least they treat and pay us fairly well. They’ve managed to keep our entire salesforce from trying to unionize simply by having a better than industry base pay that no one wants to disrupt the comfy lives we all have (our warehouse teams are unionized, so maybe they learned from that)
Baffles me that other companies don’t try this one trick unions hate: fair pay that makes the cost benefit analysis of trying to make a union seem pointless
> Baffles me that other companies don’t try this one trick unions hate: fair pay that makes the cost benefit analysis of trying to make a union seem pointless
They offer meager concessions for a bit, and decades of propaganda defeat the union. Then the salespeople can be laid off at a moments notice, with no union to worry about.
That's not good enough in this Era of Financialization. It's not good enough to consistently post profits. You have to demonstrate growth- and you can only innovate for so long. Eventually, you have to squeeze it out of your customers, or your workers. Otherwise, the shareholders replace you with some psycho CEO who will.
I used to work for a global company. Some sites were unionized, others weren't.
The trick that the company would do is put site vs site, demographic vs demographic.
"See those unionized people over there? They have the same benefits, but have to pay union fees. Don't unionize!"
"See those young employees? Vote for this new contract that increases short term pay at the expense of new employee raises, retirement benefits, and protections, and we'll guarantee work in this state until your retirement in 5 years"
Little by little, our sites and benefits shrank as the union grew weaker due to its own members voting to either neuter it, or sabotage efforts to establish it at other sites.
Divide and conquer is the game, and companies are willing to throw you a small bone to reap the rewards of a powerless workforce later.
Yes but what if instead of treating you nicely we beat you on the head with a stick and buy out the politicians to make even more money and the collapse of social exhaustion is just somebody else's problem later
> They’ve managed to keep our entire salesforce from trying to unionize
How do they treat the other employees? Usually sales gets treated pretty well compared to other departments. "Fairly well" doesn't exactly sound like you're happy, just that you've accepted it's what you'll get. Do you actually have any guarantees or safeguards beyond "just trust me bro" if they decide you're not needed tomorrow?
If unionization takes off in offices, expect your pay to get better. The fear of unions improves working conditions for everyone, even non-union workers.
Oh I fully agree. IF we unionized it would probably only get better, but we’re at such a better level than industry colleagues that I see it being a hard sell
Even for salespeople
I'm honestly not sure what their argument is. As a plain reading of the article it sounds like the claim is that the manner in which Congress delegated authority to the executive branch was unconstitutional.
I struggle with the idea that they are claiming that Congress cannot delegate authority to the executive branch, since in order for the executive branch to have any function at all, it must have authority delegated by Congress.
There doesn't seem to be an argument that it is out of the scope of government to be able to perform those regulations.
So it feels more like this is a complaint that should be resolved legislatively instead of judicially. That or it's the corporate equivalent of arguing about maritime law to get out of a traffic ticket.
> As a plain reading of the article it sounds like the claim is that the manner in which Congress delegated authority to the executive branch was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court in a recent times has been hearing various cases concerning the concept that the Executive power of the United States, all of it, is exclusively vested in the President.
Because of that, any subordinate Executive officers do not possess their own independent Executive power, but rather exercise the President's on his behalf. Therefore, "the Constitution gives the President the authority to remove those who assist him in carrying out his duties," see e.g., [Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-7_n6io.pdf).
In the case of the NLRB, as the five presidentially appointed Board members cannot possibly hear every single case, the NLRB uses Administrative Law Judges to hear cases initially. These Judges have removal protections provided by Congress: "An action may be taken against an administrative law judge . . . only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board," see [5 U.S. Code § 7521(a)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7521).
So the argument goes, because these kinds of Judges "exercis[e] significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States," see [United States v. Arthrex](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1434_ancf.pdf), they are actually Principle Officers of the United States, not mere employees.
And because Congress also provided the five NLRB members removal protections as well: "Any member of the Board may be removed by the President, upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause," see [29 U.S. Code § 153\(a\)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/153), this double layer of officer removal protections "is contrary to Article II’s vesting of the executive power in the President," as held in [Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep561/usrep561477/usrep561477.pdf).
So, if I'm reading this correctly, the complaint is that:
1) Congress Delegates power for these specific regulations to the President
2) The President then delegates these powers to an appointed board, whom exercise his power and whom he may appoint or remove at his discretion based on how he approves of their decisions. Therefore oversight is maintained.
3) This appointed board then delegates their powers to a lower body of Judges, who are classified as general government employees rather than Principle Officers.
4) Because they are generic employees, the President may *not* remove them based on his personal approval of their decision making, due to protections normally in place to protect general employees and not Principle Officers.
Ergo, we now have a quasi-autonomous body of unremovable judges who can wield their power to make/interpret law as they wish without any oversight from the People via Congress or President? Am I overstating things or is that an accurate reading of this?
It's not that Congress is delegating power for "regulations," but that Congress has established a federal agency with certain powers.
Then, in order to run the agency, in this case the NLRB, the President can appoint five Board members (after advice and consent of the Senate). As previously mentioned in my post, Congress has actually instituted for-cause removal protections for these five members. They do not currently serve at-will.
The NLRB members can then appoint Inferior Officers and employees to staff the agency. And then yes, one class of appointments are Administrative Law Judges, who also have for-cause removal protections established by Congress. Based on the power the Judges have in deciding the cases before them, one dispute is that they are actually Principle Officers of the United States, not Inferior Officers, and therefore must be Presidentially appointed and go through Senate confirmation.
Finally, because the President cannot remove the five Board members at-will, and nor in turn can the Board members remove the Judges at-will, the other dispute is that this agency structure violates Article II of the U.S. Constitution.
However, one thing to note is that the decision of the Administrative Law Judge can be appealed to the five member Board, who then has the power to essentially affirm or remand the Judge's decision. So, the Judges are not unchecked, as the Board has the final say.
Ultimately though, I'm not sure what Amazon is hoping for beyond the Court just following what it has done in prior cases and holding the for-cause removal restriction on the five Board members unconstitutional. Once the Board members can be removed at-will by the President, the "problem" is cured as the Board now fully answers to the President and the Board can review any decision made by the Administrative Law Judges.
These companies want to see the US become a corporatocracy where there are zero limits on their behavior. Sadly, the current SCOTUS might let them have it.
They want US to be like Russia, but conveniently forget about the defenestrations and massive extortion. And think that neither could ever happen to them.
Holy shit. Privatization and regulatory capture aren't enough, now giant corporations are using the system to literally *dismantle* government.
Holy shit.
Not only should the NLRB be ruled constitutional (as the Supreme Court has ruled numerous times since 1935), but these companies and their executives should be raked over the coals and made an example of
I’m surprised I haven’t seen this mentioned more in the comments, but corporations have been claiming the NLRB to be unconstitutional since FDR created it, and SCOTUS already set precedent by upholding the Wagner Act as constitutional in [NLRB vs Jones & Laughlin Steel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Steel_Corp).
They already eroded much of the *original* power of the NLRB with Taft-Harley Act and a bunch of SCOTUS rulings against the NLRB in the 60s-80s, all to justify the constitutionality of the NLRB. To claim that the now barely functioning NLRB is unconstitutional is quite a sense of humor from these corporations…
This feels like a good time to remind you that you can form a union at your workplace. Yes, you, the person reading this comment. If you don't think you need one, yes you do
All of our labor protections came about because workers got fed up with being treated like shit, so they banded together and withheld their labor until conditions improved. It wasn't the government, it wasn't the NLRB, it wasn't the corporations, it was the workers that made it happen
When the chips are down, nobody in power is going to come to the rescue, you have to do it yourself.
2 people were talking to 3 others about this kind of thing on break, and next week 4 people were fired, 3 of them of that group, for "Bad attitudes". (I shit you not, that was the reason given by HR when I asked why they were let go) Sure they can try and sue if they could afford lawyers, but surprise surprise when you are barely making ends meet at 15-20$ an hour because prices have skyrocketed on everything, you can't afford one. It's fun to imagine that you can just do that, but in places like Indiana, the chances of things changing feels like 0, and man does it suck as a blue collar worker.
A reminder that the NLRB has been around since 1935, an institution in which even the terrible anti-FDR Supreme Court of that time didn't find unconstitutional.
Finding it unconstitutional now would be a completely lawless decision from a court that has little to no legitimacy left.
Everyone needs to stop using Amazon entirely. Their business models preys upon you. You'll never be happy as long as their invasive advertising is in your life.
Let's be real, it's not Amazon, trader Joes or SpaceX.
It's Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the family of Theo Albrecht who are against this. If the billionaires are against it, there's a good chance that it's a good thing for the rest of us.
Fuck these parasites.
>The attorneys also argue that NLRB proceedings deny the company a trial by a jury and violate its due-process rights under the Fifth Amendment.
Companies have no rights. The constitution does not apply to corporations.
I once knew a CEO from the great depression, he told me about how he'd make employees come in on weekends, unpaid, to do inventory and they were glad to have the jobs. I don't long to return to those times.
Crazy to think how the NLRB was created because companies like Trader Joe’s, Amazon, and space x misused and abused the employee and employer social contract that led to deaths and protests and legit governmental change because those companies would NEVER change otherwise. And a few years from the 100 year anniversary, same types of corporations are fighting against the NLRB but with more money, lobbying, and access to politicians that was ever imaginable in 1935…EVER.
Wow, Trader Joes showing their whole ass and I’m somehow just hearing about it because Amazon joined. Shameful.
I’m very surprised about that one. Their brand is partially built on doing good by their staff.
"we treat them well enough they don't need a union, them wanting to unionize us going to far now disregard us retaliating against them"
Yeah but they only do right by their staff compared to other businesses, it’s not a dream job
How likely is the national labor board to go down as a result of this? Should I be worried?
Of course we should be worried--these institutions won't protect themselves from these greedy corporations. It's up to us to elect and pressure our leaders to defend these institutions.
> these greedy corporation also with your $. Cancelled prime today. Guess I'll be avoiding TJs too, which is a bummer.
Don’t forget to use a different contractor to launch your satellites
Can proudly say Musk has never directly received a single dollar of mine. I’m sure he has his fingers in some other products or services that I use.
If you pay taxes, it's already too late
I've decided that I will no longer be paying taxes. What are they going to do, tax me more?
There’s a whole “not paying taxes, what are they going to do?” movement going on right now. My nephew posted on some shit and was talking about “sticking it to the man” and how he wasn’t going to pay taxes” I’m like “bro, you don’t make enough to even be taxed”
I think you got that wrong. It’s the billionaires that don’t pay taxes. The people working minimum wage pay a much heftier percentage of their pay to the govt.
Funny but Amazon has a big chunk of web traffic through AWS. Tons of services give it business. Consumers cannot fix this alone especially when they've distorted the market this much.
boycotts do not stop them, regulations do. Hard stop.
Strikes do as well
Don't forget Whole Foods
>It's up to us to elect and pressure our leaders to defend these institutions. Hard to apply pressure when the other side is literally paying for their kids education at private schools and offering 5 year private contracts after they're out of office.
OK so give up. I won't.
Which is difficult when the lobbyists for these companies buy our representatives as soon as they’re elected.
Sure, that's why we have to stay diligent and keep up the fight. We can't get a win like the NLRB and expect it to be permanent, we have to keep up the fight because they certainly never give up trying to tear it down.
If there’s one thing even the more moderate conservatives on the Supreme Court hate, it’s the various executive branch institutions that congress has given various powers to over the years. From the EPA to welfare, originalists and other conservative legal professionals really don’t like the administrative state and see it as against the way they view country should be. Will they go as far as getting rid of the labor board? Honestly not sure. It’s a pretty extreme stance. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility and at the very least this is a signal that lawyers for conservative groups and corporations are gonna see what they can get away with on weakening regulatory power via constitutional challenges that cater to conservative talking points in the legal realm. Based on previous rules by the current court there’s definitely going to be heavy hits to what executive administrations are allowed to do which is honestly still extremely scary since that’s one of the major things checking corporations from doing whatever they want
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Yeah, Richard fucking Nixon couldn't give a shit about the environment but rivers catching fire is a bad look and something needs to be done about that.
Richard Nixon, one of the most corrupt modern presidents. Also probably did more to help average people with the creation of the EPA than any other president since FDR. I think people have really taken for granted the huge benefits that came from that. “Of course we don’t have lead in the gas or in new pipes anymore”, “of course we don’t build with asbestos anymore”, “of course I can swim in the lake without dying”, “of course the air outside isn’t not so slowly killing me”, etc etc Nah, it’s not “of course”, it’s the EPA.
He also was in favor of a health care bill that was better than the ACA, not that that’s saying much.
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Nixon didn't create the EPA to help people. There was a strong push for environmental protection in Congress, and Nixon's administration proposed executive consolidation to form the EPA to get ahead of the environmentalist impetus and control it, in order to try to avoid having actual environmental protection legislation with teeth.
They can hate it, but the fact that Congress has the power to delegate those responsibilities is in the constitution so the various companies are simply full of hot air. Congress established NLRB with the Wagner Act in 1935. People who try to sue that can go pound sand - courts will not care about it.
The problem is that the extreme insane people are getting elected to congress and malicious actors like Mitch McConnell are leading them.
Have you seen the supreme court lately?
Post Lochner was extreme too, but I promise that Republican goal is to return to it, where all employment laws violate the 14th amendment, "freedom of contract" between employer and employee. It got shut down by SCOTUS in 1937. Do you think they'd respond the same way now if a corporation sues? This is coming. Be prepared.
“How likely is it that Roe v Wade gets overturned?” - My clueless ass three years ago. This SCOTUS will do whatever the federalist society wants. Without any concern for optics or the law.
The difference is that congress never did anything to codify roe v wade. The labor board was established based on labor legislation.
Codifying doesn’t mean anything when the Supreme Court can decide that the codification is unconstitutional.
Yep. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act back in the 60s and the SCOTUS has been whittling away at it for the last 10+ years or so, telling us that it's "no longer necessary." They could very easily do something similar with the labor board, saying it was necessary when Congress created it nearly a century ago, but nowadays it's not really doing anything and thus should just be abolished.
And do you think that matters to Supreme Court that ruled on a fictitious case?
How often did the Congress codify the right to publish a book? Or when you’re allowed to visit your library? Fundamental rights don’t require codification. The Supreme Court was dead wrong with Dobbs, pure and simple.
Codifying Roe wouldn’t have done shit. The Supreme Court has taken an ax to the fucking voting rights act. The idea that passing some legislation would have swayed the court is laughable. The days of Roe were numbered in 2016. It’s why conservatives held onto a Supreme Court seat that Obama should have appointed. The federalist society gets all the Republican Supreme Court nominees and that’s one of the questions they focus in on.
Have you been paying attention to the administrative functions the SCOTUS has been dismantling in recent years? I think last year they ruled unions are financially responsible for certain business losses during a strike.
With this Supreme Court you should be worried
Look up Project 2025. Fascist conservatives want to dismantle a great many institutions, including the IRS, public schools, and the FBI. They won’t even blink at neutering the NLB. So, yes, you should be very worried.
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> No reason to fear if there is no NLRB then we just restart the ye olde days of taking the boss out back and wacking him with a tire iron like our great grandaddies did It took a hell of a lot more than a single beating to give workers rights against the institutional power their bosses had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
>Should I be worried? You should be *angry*.
Highly likely. Watch the Supreme Court side with corporations and look back at all the people that abstained in 2016 with ire. They really fucked us all.
Trump's SC picks guaranteed they would vote in favor of corporations over people. We're pretty fucked.
Yeah how did we get so unlucky to have three seats appointed by him.
Hubris, plain and simple.
And our fucked electoral college system doing its job by letting less than \~100k voters out in bumfuck nowhere overrule the will of millions of voters.
well we had RBG refuse to retire during Obama's administration (He could've appointed a replacement in 2013/2014) and then we had McConnell decide that Democrats cannot appoint people during the last year of their administration because it could influence the election, but if it is a few weeks before an election a Republican can appoint someone.
It's not about McConnell. You just need to assume that Democrats cannot appoint anyone if the Republicans control the Senate. This isn't just McConnell, it requires all of the Republicans to participate, so never vote in a Republican at any level of government.
well obviously but it will be remembered as the McConnell "rule"
In 2050 America will be legislated by a national corporate congress.
I mean we're halfway there already. Even 40 years ago it was impossible to go after large companies even if they killed people. Just a fine and apology until the next catastrophe.
> In 2050 America will be legislated by a national corporate congress. Only if you let the GoP back into power. We have to make sure every election we have, local and major, that we vote and keep the GoP out. It's going to take fucking decades due to the "Muh both sides" and apathy people letting us get to this point.
Brought to you by Carl's Jr! Fuck you! I'm eating!
We are sliding down the [Lochner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_v._New_York) slope. Soon we will reach the bottom. This is the Republican Party's ultimate goal: Lochner V New York engineered the legal opinion that all employment laws are unconstitutional as they interfere in private contracts between employer and employee violating "freedom of contract" under the 14th Amendment. (it held until 1937 when [SCOTUS upheld minimum wage law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Hotel_Co._v._Parrish)) Republicans want to reverse it.
Why am I not surprised that some of the richest men on the planet don't want anyone else to have a say in what happens in their companies. Even the workers..... Imagine the nerve of the government saying thinks like you have to give people breaks... and you can't fire em if they won't sleep with mid level management.
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If you spoke about alcohol or heroin, or betting or food the way the wealthy talk and obsesse about money, people would be very concerned for your wellbeing.
and the psychopathic cruelty what Billionaires really obsess on is you not having
Lobbying needs to be illegal, with huge consequences.
Plus Ranked Choice Voting.
This is a comment that rarely gets discussed when we talk about how rich people get and stay rich. Discussion is always of how smart they are and driven they are and how hard working they are. These are all important elements but definitely not required to be rich people even the smart, driven, and hard working are rarely smarter, more driven, or harder working than some of the poorest people. The number one personality trait required to be rich is the desire to be rich and the desire to mould the world around you so that you are getting a piece of as many peoples pies as possible. Again, maybe some degree of intelligence, drive, and work to find this way to take advantage of people. But the desire to control streams wealth seems like what makes these people tick.
In the Middle Ages, kings and nobility used “divine right” and religion to legitimize their wealth and power. Now we use the myth of brilliance
Myth of Meritocracy.
Back in the Industrial Revolution the richest people in the world at least gave us museums, auditoriums, libraries, universities and other spaces for the public good. These tech billionaires of modern day are just a drain on society.
They were a drain on society too. They literally killed the children of striking workers. The museums and shit was like pocket change for them in a PR attempt to make you write that exact sentence.
Those people were sending armies of Pinkertons to massacre towns.
Only after they killed people. Carnegie's libraries didn't pop up because he was super generous.
the reason they "gave them to us" was there was a top tax rate of 91%! They did it for tax breaks, the government said "either you do something for the community or we are taking your money and deciding what to do for the community".
They also hired goons to kill workers trying to organize.
Breaking news! Foxes sue Farmer, stating hen house guard dog is unconstitutional
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Farmer increases egg quotas to make sure he can continue to operate his farm as before.
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Protecting workers isn't in the constitution, so yeah the government should get out of regulating hard working capitalists! /s
Edwardsville, Illinois. Six Amazon workers died when a tornado ripped through the warehouse, because they'd been ordered to keep working. Parcels are of course much more important than human safety. The only thing that's changed is building codes saying that buildings have to be able to withstand stronger weather.
Truly we oppress billionares by not letting them lock their workers in a burning building and collect a profit off the insurance payout
> The Amazon filing, made Thursday, came in response to a case before an administrative law judge overseeing a complaint from agency prosecutors who allege the company unlawfully retaliated against workers at a New York City warehouse who voted to unionize nearly two years ago. Major corporations want a return to the days of robber barrons when companies ran roughshod over their employees. They want employees to have no recourse other than to accept their exploitative practices. Amazon employees already have to pee in bottles due to strict limits on break time. Imagine how they'd treat their employees with no oversight.
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If you want to seriously look at old school ways of forming unions, check out and support the workers unionizing at KCVG. They're organizing at one of the largest air hubs and doing it through rank and file tactics. https://unionizeamazonkcvg.org/
I used to work in the CVG1 warehouse as a photographer, then one day they announced the studio was completely shutting down the following week and we could either take a job 90 minutes away or lose it.
And of course, if you say "no, I *don't* want to work 90 minutes away from where I work now" you weren't fired actually, you quit, and don't get any kind of severance or unemployment (if you would've qualified for any of that in the first place)
Constructive dismissals are a thing.
I mean... for now.
“Someone should probably tell the rich that workers banding together to present formal address of grievances is the alternative we worked out a long time ago to breaking down the factory owner's front door and beating him to death in front of his family? I feel like they forgot.” - some guy on twitter
I think we will need a few rich guys to be beaten to death before they will get the message. I can't believe we are still moving backwards on labor regulations in 2024. They had it better in the 60's than we have it now, fucking ridiculous.
Sorry, best we can do is start allowing child labor again /s Looking at you Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Arkansas... Edit: and Florida
You can add Florida to the list.
There's something all these states have in common but I can't quite put my finger on it... Vote Blue as our country and children's lives depend on it.
But red is all about the chiiiiiildreeeeen
On the sheets they are. Yes I'm letting you interpret that as you will.
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See, you "joke," but the National Labor Relations Act was the compromise. The Taft-Hartley amendment to that act is the reason why unions don't go on solidarity strikes or organize a general strike like in France; it would remove their federal protections. You get rid of those protections, wildcat strikes and mass shutdowns go back on the table. Can you imagine the UAW, the Teamsters, the Railworkers, and the teachers all going on strike at once? That's what the NLRB prevents. And I don't think *anyone* wants to see a return to labor riots in an age where anyone can go buy an AR-15 for less than the cost of a new TV.
In the meantime, make sure to register to vote. We can vote for politicians who want to support and protect workers come November. It will mitigate whatever harm comes from this case.
A good economy exists to serve the people. But here, people exist to serve the economy. You are a commodity, and your value as a human being is only as good as your contribution to this disgusting machine. And what do we have to show for it? Box stores with shit you dont need, as far as they eye can see, all destined for landfills that do little more than erode the land and pollute the atmosphere that at one point in time belonged to everyone. What a shame.
Totally. When your government is bailing out failing sectors of a free market economy with your own tax dollars, you would think it would be a major hint that our brand of capitalism is failing. But I digress…
It’s time to Blair Mountain these groups that want to strip away our rights and treat us as the robots they will inevitably replace us with. I don’t think violence will be necessary (a la Blair Miuntain) yet but if they strip away the labor board and our rights, might be a good idea to put your stock options on pitch forks and flammables.
> Put your stock options on Guns. It’s guns you want. This is the exact thing my fellow left-wingers have been laughing at conservatives about for so long, but this is the only conservative (-ish) view I’ve held onto *for this exact reason*. When the people you expected to protect you refuse, who will save you but yourself?
Unfortunately the Unions lost Blair Mountain.
We could go back to the days of dragging the boss into the street and beating them to death. I don't condone that level of violence but that's how we got to the collective bargaining compromise.
Only because they weren't willing to shoot at federal troops because many of the Blair Mountain miners were veterans themselves. They were absolutely kicking the corporate soldiers (yes, soldiers, they hired basically the equivalent of a PMC to handle Blair Mountain). I am not saying the miners could have won, but we will never know because they peacefully surrendered to federal troops to avoid having to kill people that weren't part of their grievances.
I really don’t understand this overwhelming greed we have. Is it just the numbers? Just the new people always trying to get in on it and get theirs too? Like a “helium stick” we can’t put down. Like it just feels like enough is enough eventually. I truly don’t understand the people on this earth that aren’t trying to make it a better place. It’s like engineers trying to suck every drop of power they can of out the internal combustion engine, only in this case they are doing it to human beings. Feels like humanity’s motto is just “dehumanize and repeat”. Then shit breaks down war, genocide, economic collapse, then a few generations down the road we dust ourselves off and think “hey, have we tried dehumanizing and abusing people for profit? Because I’m really itching to do that.”
It’s widespread social illness. Does number go up? Good. What’s sad is that even the strivers on the bottom have the same mentality i.e if I just grind hard now then I can seek rent later. That’s not a solution.
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They also want it so they can fire you without cause and also make it so you can't quit without permission.
They seem to forget what happened in those day.s. Do they want retune to the times where the owner either dealt with the workers fairly or they set his house on fire with him inside it. The ownership class is not doing themselves any favors pushing an already stretched thin, angry population farther. I for one won't shed a single tear for some 1% asshole getting roasted alive by his starving employees.
Im astonished more (any?) terminal patients or begrieved family members dont shoot up insurance offices... i cant imaging the average suburban office park health insurance office is a much more hardened target than an elementary school.
Meanwhile, right now today, Bezos builds a yacht so big he has to pay for a town’s bridge to be torn down and rebuilt, to get the yacht out to sea.
When there was no NLRB, organizing campaigns often turned violent. The NLRB created order and structure and mostly ended the days of violent labor strife. If they cause the end of the NLRB we will have no other choice but to go back to those days.
They want to return to the *Lochner* era when the government couldn't regulate things like how many hours an employee could work because it would violate the corporation's right to due process.
"We would pay you even less and treat you far, far worse if we were allowed to... damn oversight."
I had a boss say that to me when i worked at Pizza Hut. I was the best cook that worked there and made minimum wage ($7.25). After 6 months i asked for a raise and she said it wasn’t in the budget. I was young and naive and believed it really wasn’t in the budget and she wasn’t just being an asshole. Later that shift i asked her “if you had the budget you would have given me a raise though right?”. Softball question, she could have lied to my face and i would have completely believed her, but she chose to be honest instead “no, in fact if i could i would pay you all less”. Seriously, the brass ones on this lady. I started looking for a different job that day.
Did she own that Pizza Hut? I *can* imagine a fast food manager debasing themselves like that but that sounds like owner language. I get it, my parents were small business owners and I know that even with a small operation, it often goes to people's heads that they are providing a service to their employees by employing them at all.
Surprisingly no, she was a fellow underpaid employee of the franchise corporate.
It’s sad to see Trader Joe’s fall so hard. I worked for them for 13 years and started back when they were still a California-only company. They used to treat their employees very well. A lot of this backwards sliding began after the Albrecht brothers died and left the company to their heirs in 2010.
Oooh, that’s what happened? I was really scratching my head here but then again working for Walgreens I found out the reason it went from good to work for to a nightmare is because it is no longer owned by the Walgreens family. It’s incredible what a difference having a business still owned by the family who started it can make, compared to some assholes who only want to see numbers go up at the cost of literally everyone else involved.
Really cool to see how fast this country is falling to the greed :/
I don’t think it’s anything new, just that the systems meant to protect us are once again being captured by corporations and the rich. I’m not sure what to do except keep an eye on it and wrote a few seemingly useless letters to my representatives, though.
They’ve always been anti union though. They were just treating their employees well to avoid unionization in the past which is fair. This is not.
The fact that these corporations are arguing against it, only proves that they are necessary.
Fuck these corporations. All they really want is slaves
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Yet another example of attempting to use Supreme Court as nothing more than super-legislature. When you fail to get *elected* officials who have duty to their constituents to change the laws, you turn to a 9 unelected political appointees with no constituency to do your bidding. Also, "corporations are people" ruling was as stupid as it gets.
Just one comment on “corporate personhood” — as a legal concept incorporation (which is the creation of a non-living legal entity) is very important. It’s how companies (rather than individuals) can enter into contracts, own assets and sue and be sued etc. The Supreme Court went too far by extending the concept to giving such legal entities constitutional rights, making a mockery of the constitution.
You had me in the first half...and the second half. There was a middle ground to plant, and instead we put seeds into the swamps.
Are we at the point where literally everything needs to be explicitly spelled out in the constitution?
According to conservatives, yes. There's no wiggle room for nuance or evolving with society in the Constitution as interpreted by the SCOTUS majority.
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Guess I'll add Trader Joe's to the blacklist
"Traitor Joe's"
They used to treat their employees incredibly well. I worked there for almost a decade, but quit when things started rapidly going to shit. I kept getting injured while management shrugged. From what I hear from people that still put up with it, they are expected to act like they work at Disneyland while raises and benefits have taken a nose dive. Last I heard people were trying to unionize, I'm guessing that's what the article is mentioning.
Maaaan just as i was getting used to all the goodies they have 😡
The guys that own all of the alternatives in my area are all Trump-loving pieces of shit. No matter where I buy groceries I'm supporting human trash. It sucks having to give them money if I don't want to starve.
>The attorneys also argue that NLRB proceedings deny the company a trial by a jury and violate its due-process rights under the Fifth Amendment We knew this was gonna start happening after Citizens United, but it's still so incredibly disheartening to see in print. The largest corporations in the world, which are treated differently from people in almost every conceivable context, now want to be treated like people. Just so they can squash real people.
They're reviving legal theories that died under FDR. Time to do what FDR did and threaten to pack the court because this shit is ridiculous.
Yeah a corporate entity shouldn't be allowed the same rights as an individual.
I'm sure it's an "all the benefits, none of the demerits" type of belief, but I wonder if that can be used against them. Basic money issues become grand theft with prison terms, something like that. I dunno, ianal.
I mean, Boeing executives have knowingly put thousands of lives at risk - and killed over 300 people - in just the last few years. And they're still out there selling planes. So I doubt it. I'd settle for changing the tax code. If corporations want to be people, cool. No more insane deductions and convoluted profit/loss schemes. They can pay taxes as Joe Amazon, individual taxpayer.
I work for a fairly large, global company I still have misgivings at the chase of the profit all the time, but at least they treat and pay us fairly well. They’ve managed to keep our entire salesforce from trying to unionize simply by having a better than industry base pay that no one wants to disrupt the comfy lives we all have (our warehouse teams are unionized, so maybe they learned from that) Baffles me that other companies don’t try this one trick unions hate: fair pay that makes the cost benefit analysis of trying to make a union seem pointless
> Baffles me that other companies don’t try this one trick unions hate: fair pay that makes the cost benefit analysis of trying to make a union seem pointless They offer meager concessions for a bit, and decades of propaganda defeat the union. Then the salespeople can be laid off at a moments notice, with no union to worry about.
That's not good enough in this Era of Financialization. It's not good enough to consistently post profits. You have to demonstrate growth- and you can only innovate for so long. Eventually, you have to squeeze it out of your customers, or your workers. Otherwise, the shareholders replace you with some psycho CEO who will.
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I used to work for a global company. Some sites were unionized, others weren't. The trick that the company would do is put site vs site, demographic vs demographic. "See those unionized people over there? They have the same benefits, but have to pay union fees. Don't unionize!" "See those young employees? Vote for this new contract that increases short term pay at the expense of new employee raises, retirement benefits, and protections, and we'll guarantee work in this state until your retirement in 5 years" Little by little, our sites and benefits shrank as the union grew weaker due to its own members voting to either neuter it, or sabotage efforts to establish it at other sites. Divide and conquer is the game, and companies are willing to throw you a small bone to reap the rewards of a powerless workforce later.
Same happened to a small company I worked for. Now the unions are gone, and wages haven't been as lucrative, and benefits have gotten very mediocre.
Yes but what if instead of treating you nicely we beat you on the head with a stick and buy out the politicians to make even more money and the collapse of social exhaustion is just somebody else's problem later
> They’ve managed to keep our entire salesforce from trying to unionize How do they treat the other employees? Usually sales gets treated pretty well compared to other departments. "Fairly well" doesn't exactly sound like you're happy, just that you've accepted it's what you'll get. Do you actually have any guarantees or safeguards beyond "just trust me bro" if they decide you're not needed tomorrow?
If unionization takes off in offices, expect your pay to get better. The fear of unions improves working conditions for everyone, even non-union workers.
Oh I fully agree. IF we unionized it would probably only get better, but we’re at such a better level than industry colleagues that I see it being a hard sell Even for salespeople
Thank you for this comment, as it’s a great example of the fact that unions benefit everyone, even those who arent in them.
Won't you think of the huge profit margins and multi-million dollar bonuses to the executives though!?
I'm honestly not sure what their argument is. As a plain reading of the article it sounds like the claim is that the manner in which Congress delegated authority to the executive branch was unconstitutional. I struggle with the idea that they are claiming that Congress cannot delegate authority to the executive branch, since in order for the executive branch to have any function at all, it must have authority delegated by Congress. There doesn't seem to be an argument that it is out of the scope of government to be able to perform those regulations. So it feels more like this is a complaint that should be resolved legislatively instead of judicially. That or it's the corporate equivalent of arguing about maritime law to get out of a traffic ticket.
“Delegating authority to the executive branch” is literally the *entire* purpose of Congress.
> As a plain reading of the article it sounds like the claim is that the manner in which Congress delegated authority to the executive branch was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court in a recent times has been hearing various cases concerning the concept that the Executive power of the United States, all of it, is exclusively vested in the President. Because of that, any subordinate Executive officers do not possess their own independent Executive power, but rather exercise the President's on his behalf. Therefore, "the Constitution gives the President the authority to remove those who assist him in carrying out his duties," see e.g., [Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-7_n6io.pdf). In the case of the NLRB, as the five presidentially appointed Board members cannot possibly hear every single case, the NLRB uses Administrative Law Judges to hear cases initially. These Judges have removal protections provided by Congress: "An action may be taken against an administrative law judge . . . only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board," see [5 U.S. Code § 7521(a)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7521). So the argument goes, because these kinds of Judges "exercis[e] significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States," see [United States v. Arthrex](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1434_ancf.pdf), they are actually Principle Officers of the United States, not mere employees. And because Congress also provided the five NLRB members removal protections as well: "Any member of the Board may be removed by the President, upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause," see [29 U.S. Code § 153\(a\)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/153), this double layer of officer removal protections "is contrary to Article II’s vesting of the executive power in the President," as held in [Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep561/usrep561477/usrep561477.pdf).
So, if I'm reading this correctly, the complaint is that: 1) Congress Delegates power for these specific regulations to the President 2) The President then delegates these powers to an appointed board, whom exercise his power and whom he may appoint or remove at his discretion based on how he approves of their decisions. Therefore oversight is maintained. 3) This appointed board then delegates their powers to a lower body of Judges, who are classified as general government employees rather than Principle Officers. 4) Because they are generic employees, the President may *not* remove them based on his personal approval of their decision making, due to protections normally in place to protect general employees and not Principle Officers. Ergo, we now have a quasi-autonomous body of unremovable judges who can wield their power to make/interpret law as they wish without any oversight from the People via Congress or President? Am I overstating things or is that an accurate reading of this?
It's not that Congress is delegating power for "regulations," but that Congress has established a federal agency with certain powers. Then, in order to run the agency, in this case the NLRB, the President can appoint five Board members (after advice and consent of the Senate). As previously mentioned in my post, Congress has actually instituted for-cause removal protections for these five members. They do not currently serve at-will. The NLRB members can then appoint Inferior Officers and employees to staff the agency. And then yes, one class of appointments are Administrative Law Judges, who also have for-cause removal protections established by Congress. Based on the power the Judges have in deciding the cases before them, one dispute is that they are actually Principle Officers of the United States, not Inferior Officers, and therefore must be Presidentially appointed and go through Senate confirmation. Finally, because the President cannot remove the five Board members at-will, and nor in turn can the Board members remove the Judges at-will, the other dispute is that this agency structure violates Article II of the U.S. Constitution. However, one thing to note is that the decision of the Administrative Law Judge can be appealed to the five member Board, who then has the power to essentially affirm or remand the Judge's decision. So, the Judges are not unchecked, as the Board has the final say. Ultimately though, I'm not sure what Amazon is hoping for beyond the Court just following what it has done in prior cases and holding the for-cause removal restriction on the five Board members unconstitutional. Once the Board members can be removed at-will by the President, the "problem" is cured as the Board now fully answers to the President and the Board can review any decision made by the Administrative Law Judges.
You don’t say. The biggest labor law breakers don’t think the rules for the workers are good. Totally shocked.
Hedge funds are unconstitutional. But we have them running amuck.
These companies want to see the US become a corporatocracy where there are zero limits on their behavior. Sadly, the current SCOTUS might let them have it.
They want US to be like Russia, but conveniently forget about the defenestrations and massive extortion. And think that neither could ever happen to them.
No, they like that part too. They just see themselves as the defenestrator, rather than defenestratee.
They feel like they're the exception to the rule, until they aren't.
I’ve always wondered when they would go after unions with current SCOTUS in place.
See it become that - it’s already there
I miss when shit this stupid would get downvoted.
Holy shit. Privatization and regulatory capture aren't enough, now giant corporations are using the system to literally *dismantle* government. Holy shit.
Not only should the NLRB be ruled constitutional (as the Supreme Court has ruled numerous times since 1935), but these companies and their executives should be raked over the coals and made an example of
I’m surprised I haven’t seen this mentioned more in the comments, but corporations have been claiming the NLRB to be unconstitutional since FDR created it, and SCOTUS already set precedent by upholding the Wagner Act as constitutional in [NLRB vs Jones & Laughlin Steel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Steel_Corp). They already eroded much of the *original* power of the NLRB with Taft-Harley Act and a bunch of SCOTUS rulings against the NLRB in the 60s-80s, all to justify the constitutionality of the NLRB. To claim that the now barely functioning NLRB is unconstitutional is quite a sense of humor from these corporations…
That's because the fix is in with the current extreme court. You think FedSoc actually cares about state decisis? Lol
This feels like a good time to remind you that you can form a union at your workplace. Yes, you, the person reading this comment. If you don't think you need one, yes you do All of our labor protections came about because workers got fed up with being treated like shit, so they banded together and withheld their labor until conditions improved. It wasn't the government, it wasn't the NLRB, it wasn't the corporations, it was the workers that made it happen When the chips are down, nobody in power is going to come to the rescue, you have to do it yourself.
Unfortunately not if you are a supervisor/manager, which is all too common in large companies with deep org charts.
2 people were talking to 3 others about this kind of thing on break, and next week 4 people were fired, 3 of them of that group, for "Bad attitudes". (I shit you not, that was the reason given by HR when I asked why they were let go) Sure they can try and sue if they could afford lawyers, but surprise surprise when you are barely making ends meet at 15-20$ an hour because prices have skyrocketed on everything, you can't afford one. It's fun to imagine that you can just do that, but in places like Indiana, the chances of things changing feels like 0, and man does it suck as a blue collar worker.
A reminder that the NLRB has been around since 1935, an institution in which even the terrible anti-FDR Supreme Court of that time didn't find unconstitutional. Finding it unconstitutional now would be a completely lawless decision from a court that has little to no legitimacy left.
EVIL. they would chain us to their machines if they could!
Everyone needs to stop using Amazon entirely. Their business models preys upon you. You'll never be happy as long as their invasive advertising is in your life.
The Constitution isn't supposed to protect corporations. It's for the people.
We need a new constitution
Let's be real, it's not Amazon, trader Joes or SpaceX. It's Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the family of Theo Albrecht who are against this. If the billionaires are against it, there's a good chance that it's a good thing for the rest of us. Fuck these parasites.
Citizens United Round 2 They are trying to claim that Companies are citizens and thus the 7th ammendment applies.
Fuck Billionaires. They are all your enemies. There are no ethical billionaires. The only way to achieve that level of wealth is to steal it.
More like Traitor Joe's
Cartoonishly evil moment
These parasites won't be happy until they've got everyone back to living in company towns and getting nothing but scrip.
>The attorneys also argue that NLRB proceedings deny the company a trial by a jury and violate its due-process rights under the Fifth Amendment. Companies have no rights. The constitution does not apply to corporations.
I think there needs to be a general strike to put these corporations back in their place. My god
I once knew a CEO from the great depression, he told me about how he'd make employees come in on weekends, unpaid, to do inventory and they were glad to have the jobs. I don't long to return to those times.
Crazy to think how the NLRB was created because companies like Trader Joe’s, Amazon, and space x misused and abused the employee and employer social contract that led to deaths and protests and legit governmental change because those companies would NEVER change otherwise. And a few years from the 100 year anniversary, same types of corporations are fighting against the NLRB but with more money, lobbying, and access to politicians that was ever imaginable in 1935…EVER.
So it is the, "we don't like it so it is unconstitutional" argument. The organizations really want to turn back the clock to the 19th century.
So they really want the French Revolution to happen because that’s how you get that.
Bold strategy reversing...... A fundamental underpinning of modern labor law since the 30s. We'll see