President Bush To Nominate Peter N. Kirsanow To Serve On The NLRB

From the White House's webpage:

The President intends to nominate Peter N. Kirsanow, of Ohio, to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board, for the remainder of a five-year term expiring August 27, 2008. Mr. Kirsanow is currently a Partner with Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff, LLP. In addition, he serves as a Member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Mr. Kirsanow previously served as Senior Legal Counsel for Leaseway Transportation Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to that, he served as Labor Counsel for the City of Cleveland. Earlier in his career, Mr. Kirsanow practiced law with Calfee, Halter & Griswold, LLP. He received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University and his JD from Cleveland Marshall College of Law.

I'm sure that Kirsanow hopes that this nomination will be less problematic than his 2001 appointment to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. See U.S. v. Wilson, 290 F.3d 347 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (reversing district court and holding that the Commission improperly refused to recognize Kirsanow as one of its members).

Upcoming Lectures on Labor Law

Jonathan Hiatt, the General Counsel of the AFL-CIO, will speak on "Collective Rights in the Workplace Within a Culture of Individual Rights" next Wednesday, November 16, at Georgetown University Law Center. In recent speeches, Hiatt has been a vocal critic of the current NLRB, arguing that it has unwisely reversed precedent or seriously undermined it in approximately 40 cases.
UPDATE: I've learned that this lecture is invitation-only.

On March 8, 2006, Professor Julius Getman will give a lecture on "The Decline of Unions: Is Labor Law to Blame?" at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. The law school will be webcasting Getman's lecture live at 4:30 p.m., here. Professor Getman will address whether labor law is responsible for the decline in union density and whether Congress should amend the NLRA to promote unionization. Getman has previously argued that, absent an amendment, "[i]t is far too late in the day to fundamentally change the role of the Board or the interpretation of the NLRA." Julius Getman, Unions & The NLRB, 8 Green Bag 2d 29, 31 (2004). He has advocated for amendments to the NLRA that would overturn the Mackay doctrine on permanant replacements, repeal Section 8(b)(4), and relax the limits of Section 8(a)(2). Julius Getman, The National Labor Relations Act: What Went Wrong; Can We Fix It?, 45 Boston College Law Rev. 125 (2003).

Thanks to Richard Bales at Workplace Prof Blog for the information.

Seventh Circuit Denies Enforcement in Midwest Generation

The Seventh Circuit refused to enforce the NLRB's decision in Midwest Generation, 343 NLRB No. 12 (2004), which had dismissed an allegation that an employer violated Section 8(a)(3) when, after a union's unconditional offer to stop striking, it locked out full-term strikers while allowing nonstrikers and crossovers to continue working. Local 15, IBEW v. NLRB, No. 05-1058 (7th Cir. Oct. 31, 2005). The court held that the employer lacked a legitimate and substantial business justification for treating the two groups of employees differently. The court relied heavily on Member Walsh's dissent in so holding. Earlier this year, I criticized the Board's Midwest Generation decision in this post.