Cablevision has taken its fight with the National Labor Relations Board to the pages of the Washington Post.
A full-page ad on the back of the A Section of the paper Thursday (July 11) and paid for by Cablevision subsidiary CSC Holdings asks who is "pulling the NLRB's strings," then proceeds to answer that question by saying it has become a "puppet" of Big Labor.
It also says the NLRB "blocked cable TV workers in New York from voting on whether or not to continue with union representation."
The NLRB blocked a vote by Cablevision employees in Brooklyn over whether what Cablevision says is a small number of employees should continue to be represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which is in a contract dispute with Cablevision. CWA has argued that its workers were illegally locked out.
The ad points out that courts have ruled that the Obama appointments to the NLRB were invalid.
The president made the appointments arguing that they were recess appointments even though they came during the series of pro-forma gavelings that Congress has long used to technically remain in session during the break between Congresses and prevent such recess appointments. The Supreme Court has agreed to review those decisions, but declined to stay an NLRB Cablevision-related hearing this week.
Congressional Democrats and Republicans continue to square off over the nominations.
The ad also points readers to NLRBtruth.com, a site backed by CSC that says the Obama Administration "has turned the NLRB into a pro-big labor 'kangaroo court'" and that the agency is "arrogant and out of control."
CWA has been taking out its own ads, including on the Washington Post website, backing the NLRB and calling for Republicans to stop obstructing the nominations.
A Cablevision spokesperson said its ad had run in a number of D.C. papers and online.
"The role of Congress is to provide oversight and ensure a balanced NLRB, however, the Obama Administration bypassed Congress in order to stack the NLRB in favor of Big Labor," the company said in a statement. "Two different federal appeals courts have rejected that scheme and established that the NLRB has no authority to act. The public deserves to know that this activist NLRB is attacking American workers and businesses in pursuit of Big Labor's agenda and in violation of two federal court rulings."
