Cablevision has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to suspend pending National Labor Relations Board pursuit of complaints against the company, a trial it calls pointless and expensive in both time and money.
The GOP has reportedly been holding up the president's NLRB nominees and, in the meantime, Cablevision points out, the D.C. Circuit and Third Circuit have both ruled that the board lacks the authority to take any actions since it currently lacks a quorum of at least three members, which it has not had for almost a year and a half.
In asking for a writ of mandamus and a motion for a stay, Cablevision said that despite those court rulings, NLRB "continues to prosecute various unfair labor practice charges against Cablevision - charges that are baseless but will nonetheless require that the Company - not to mention the taxpayers - devote overwhelming amounts of time and money to participate in a lengthy, pointless trial."
The NLRB has 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.
Cablevision wants them to hold the vote and argues that the NLRB hold should have no force.
"Cablevision claims that the directors of two NLRB regions have no standing because [an] appeals court rules that all of president Obama's recess appointments and two NLRB members in particular were not constitutional," CWA said on its website. "This decision is preposterous since it would mean that more than 100 recess appointments by presidents Obama and Bush, and their decisions, would be thrown out."
On Thursday (May 30), CWA launched a campaign to promote the value of the NLRB as a protector of free speech in the workplace.
