Chamber joins court challenge against NLRB recess appointments

{mosads}Canning’s case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Circuit. The Chamber wants to argue that Obama’s recess appointments to
the NLRB, made in January, were not legal. The business group says the Senate
was in session at the time of the appointments, not in recess, as the White
House claims. 

“Appointing three of five members to the NLRB in a legally questionable way
casts doubt on the work of the entire agency,” said Tom Donohue, the Chamber’s
president and CEO, in a statement. “We cautioned in January that shoehorning
these nominees into office in this controversial way would throw the legal
validity of every decision of the Board into question. Our concern has now
become a reality. 

“We are simply asking the courts to sort out the question of
the NLRB’s authority quickly, so that employers and employees alike can have
predictability and certainty.”

The White House has argued that Obama was on sound legal footing when he
appointed Sharon Block, Terence Flynn and Richard Griffin to the
labor board. They argue that the Senate’s pro forma sessions — which involve
banging the gavel once every three days — do not prevent the president from
making the appointments because the Senate is actually in recess.

The courts have ignored one legal challenge to the recess appointments already.
In a ruling earlier this month regarding the NLRB’s rule that would have
employers post notices explaining collective bargaining rights, Judge Amy
Berman Jackson said the court would not take up “a political dispute” over the appointments.