The Right Wants To Overturn A Foundational Labor Law

The foundational 1935 labor law protecting workers is unconstitutional, according to major corporations and right-wing zealots who believe they have enough votes on the Supreme Court to overturn it. In the latest sign that anti-union forces will doggedly press the matter, a federal judge for the Northern District of Texas enjoined the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from processing any allegations of employer violations of workers’ rights. The National Review hailed the decision as “A Welcome Blow to the NLRB.”

This is after Elon Musk’s SpaceX won a similar injunction against the NLRB before the Western District of Texas in July. Both cases will work their way up to the Fifth Circuit Court, which has served as an expressway to steer anti-regulatory legal appeals to the Supreme Court ever since Trump packed it with right-wing ideologues.

The arguments that the employers utilize, and even the immediate outcomes of these cases, are almost irrelevant to the ultimate goal: The right wing aims to repeal the 20^th Century.

But, in trying to repeal all the rights and protections workers gained during the New Deal, including the limited protections that workers currently enjoy for organizing and engaging in collective bargaining, killing the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) would also mean the lifting of a host of restrictions on unions’ ability to carry out solidarity activism and effective economic sanctions.

Are unions prepared for a return to “the law of the jungle?”

Here’s what the bosses in these cases are arguing: The National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional because its staff — the administrative law judges (ALJ’s) who are tasked with investigating and litigating violations of the Act — were improperly appointed.