At some point, we have to ask: when is someone going to hold Big Labor’s Lafe Solomon accountable?
You know Lafe, the National Labor Relations Board’s Acting General Counsel … for life, it seems. He’s the NLRB’s Teflon lawyer because despite a long string of gaffes, missteps and outright violations of federal law, he’s still where he and Big Labor want him to be. His union boss and lobbyist friends are doing all they can to make sure it stays that way.
We’re watching it unfold with a certain level of astonishment. Nonpartisan government watchdog Cause for Action recently uncovered inappropriate email exchanges between Solomon and former NLRB Member and Chair Wilma Leibman. In what the organization describes as “ex parte communication,” Solomon and Liebman were discussing a media response strategy for the NLRB’s case against aerospace company Boeing.
“ … Solomon and Liebman were communicating about a press strategy regarding the case that the NLRB brought against Boeing. As Cause of Action has previously pointed out, the NLRB’s own ex parte rules prohibit communications with outside, interested persons. In this case, Liebman and Solomon should have had no communications about the Boeing case, as Solomon was the acting counsel on the case.”
But that’s against the rules. Soloman, who acts in the role of prosecutor, should not be communicating with Leibman, who as a board member acts in the role of a judge, about a matter pending before the board.
Cause for Action notified the NLRB’s own inspector general about the emails – back in November 2011. Solomon’s office responded by stating:
“The previously redacted portions of these documents, in fact, demonstrate that Agency’s internal deliberations were structured to specifically respond to the two questions posed by the CNN producer.”
The IG, obviously, is not only taking its time to investigate the incident, but it’s also not pushing the case any further. Solomon, again, gets a free pass and the NLRB keeps advancing Big Labor’s job-killing agenda unabated. Yet, this is one of the most unprecedented examples of a federal regulatory agency gone rogue, even in defiance of its own rules. We are left wondering what it will take to stop
