Workers Aren't Bosses

This just in: workers aren't bosses, after all. At least that's what the House Education and Labor Committee said yesterday, when it voted to overturn the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) "workers are supervisors" decisions. The NLRB, in what are called the Kentucky River decisions, named for the nursing home that first claimed its nurses are supervisors, said last year that nurses could be supervisors if they undertook supervisory duties as little as 10% to 15% of the time. If approved by Congress and signed by President Bush -- an unlikely prospect -- the legislation would bar companies from arbitrarily declaring millions of workers "supervisors," unprotected by labor law and open to harassment, firing, arbitrary management decisions and even forced participation in anti-union campaigns. Kentucky River didn't cover just nurses.  Analysis of federal occupational data by the Economic Policy Institute showed 8 million workers could be arbitrarily declared "supervisors."  The highest percentage of "supervisors" would be among physicians' assistants.  But other professions--construction workers, newspaper reporters, kindergarten teachers and various aides--could be "supervisors," too.
- reported by Press Associates, Inc.