Washington, DC (March 19, 2018) – The National Right to Work Foundation, a charitable organization that provides free legal assistance to employees nationwide, today submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), asking for information regarding the NLRB’s standards for recusal and the Board’s determination to reconsider and vacate a recent decision.

“National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys are currently providing free legal aid to workers in more than eighty NLRB cases,” stated Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse, who submitted the FOIA request. “These victims of compulsory unionism abuses deserve fair and impartial hearings from properly constituted NLRB panels.”

Barack Obama’s NLRB, which was dogged by accusations of its partiality throughout Obama’s two terms in office, overturned thirty years of precedent in Browning-Ferris Industries in 2015. This past December, in Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors, the NLRB overruled Browning-Ferris and restored “the principles governing joint-employer status that existed prior to that decision.”

Since the decision in Hy-Brand, one Board Member’s term expired. Then, the NLRB’s Inspector General concluded that another should have been recused in Hy-Brand because his former law firm represented an employer that was a party in Browning-Ferris. Citing the Inspector General’s report, the other three Members of the Board in late February vacated the Hy-Brand decision.

The FOIA request seeks information, documents, and communications regarding the Inspector General’s recusal determination in this case, any other recusal determinations since January 1, 2009, and the three-member panel’s reconsideration of Hy-Brand. In addition to communications between or among Board Members and the Inspector General, the Foundation seeks their communications regarding these matters with members and staff of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the press, or union officials.

“The NLRB’s Inspector General appears to be setting a troubling double standard regarding recusals, especially considering the same office looked the other way when former Service Employees International Union lawyer and Obama appointee Craig Becker refused to recuse himself from cases involving the SEIU and its affiliates,” explained National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.

“The public deserves to know the truth surrounding this double standard, especially given that it advances the concerted effort by Big Labor and its allies to block a full NLRB from reviewing controversial Obama-era rulings that limit the rights of workers who don’t want to associate with a labor union,” continued Mix.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.