Labor board muzzles free speech

With a neo-Nazi government in power, you can't expect it to ever side with workers. This past week the Bush regime once again lived down to expectations when the National Labor Relations Board decreed that employers have the right to bar workers from sending out union-related messages on their workplace e-mail.

I, however, decree employers don't have this right. The NLRB's diktat runs against years of what was thought to be settled policy. If an e-mail is union-related, then of course it's work-related. Clear? The union isn't an outside agitator but is a federation of workers.

The NLRB is in effect stifling legitimate communications between the unions and their members.

Is the NLRB going to make it illegal to use the bulletin board in the lounge at work to post union notices? That's exactly what this is like.

An important question I haven't seen asked yet: This ruling came about because an employee of a newspaper sent out e-mails to fellow workers about union activities. How did the employer even know what the worker said if they hadn't been spying on her e-mail? Answer me that one, wingnuts.

What's especially pathetic is the NLRB's excuse (that's another word for horseshit) for issuing this high-handed fiat. They said barring union communications falls under the employer's "basic property right." So they really do think workers are company property.

Although Robert Battista, the right-wing chairman of the NLRB, stepped down after this ruling because his term expired, Bush has threatened to abuse the recess appointment privilege (again) to reappoint Battista so he doesn't have to be confirmed by the Senate.

How do we stop this right-wing crap?

There ought to be a law. Because the federal government is obviously dead wood, the states need to step up to the plate and pass laws saying workers have the right to use e-mail for union activities.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/business/22cnd-labor.html)