Why Is the Audubon Society Attacking the NLRB?
Last month, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the Audubon Society concerning treatment of its employees. In a wildly aggressive response, the nonprofit is arguing that the NLRB is unconstitutional.
A white-crowned sparrow is observed by bird enthusiasts from the Audubon Society in Menlo Park, California, on February 3, 2017. (Paul Chinn / the San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Early last month, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 2 issued a complaint against the Audubon Society, a lovable nonprofit organization focused on the protection of birds. The complaint alleges that the Audubon Society repeatedly failed and refused to furnish information requested by the union representing its employees, unilaterally implemented changes to employee health insurance without bargaining, and discriminatorily provided a long list of new benefits only to its nonunionized staffers.
That the Audubon Society is allegedly treating its employees this way is troubling, but this is all fairly regular stuff that lots of bad employers do. Everything in the NLRB complaint is based on old, well-settled areas of Board law.
The Audubon Society’s answer to the complaint is wildly aggressive, however. It contains six different arguments that the NLRB is acting unconstitutionally by trying to enforce the National Labor Relations Act against the organization.
A couple of these arguments are the ones conservatives have already been pushing, including the argument that the NLRB’s administrative law judges (ALJs) are unconstitutionally difficult to fire (see explanation here) and the argument that the NLRB process infringes on the constitutional right to a jury trial (see explanation here). Other arguments, such as the claim that the NLRB is violating the Audubon Society’s free speech rights are more novel, or, at minimum, not really the attack points the conservative legal movement are currently focused on.
When someone like Elon Musk does this kind of thing, it’s easy enough to understand why. He has conservative politics and would like to see labor rights rolled back. But, just like with the American Civil Liberties Union before, it is baffling why liberal nonprofits pursue this kind of strategy. Does the Audubon Society really want to avoid cooperating with its staff union so much that it is willing to run a test case that, if successful, could destroy the labor rights of 100+ million people in the country? Do its crunchy environmentalist donors want them spending the organization’s budget on that legal project?
It’s truly insane behavior.