Not long ago we anonymously received a copy of the following press release from the National Labor Relations Board Professional Association union dated June 30:

The Battle To Prevent Another September Massacre at the NLRB

The National Labor Relations Board Professional Association, the union representing attorneys at the Board’s D.C. headquarters, is fighting to prevent another September Massacre. The “massacre” that the Union fears isn’t dozens of controversial decisions but a wave of unfair and discriminatory mid-year appraisals and reprisals against its members.

A new performance-appraisal program sparked this battle. Applying a “forced distribution” model like those popular with corporations like General Electric, the Board forced attorney ratings to fit a pre-established distribution. As a result, the Board’s staff attorneys were more or less equally divided into Exceptional, Commendable, and Proficient categories.

To get this predetermined distribution, Board managers unfairly tinkered with individual ratings. The resultant ratings “downgrades,” in many instances of attorneys long rated in the highest category, prompted grievances by more than one third of 45 staff attorneys.

In addition, because the NLRB’s “rank-and-yank” appraisal system had a discriminatory, adverse impact on the Board’s older female and disabled attorneys, the new system generated discrimination complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity office and a grievance of the new system’s discriminatory impact on the bargaining unit by the Union.

Board management’s response to the Union’s efforts has been anything but predictable. The NLRB’s lone Democratic member, Wilma Liebman, has not settled a single grievance and threatened reprisals against grievants and a Union officer. Meanwhile, Chairman Peter Schaumber, despite his conservative, pro-employer reputation, has cooperated with the Union to settle most of the appraisal grievances of the attorneys assigned to him.

The Union recently filed grievances against retaliatory conduct by Member Liebman and contacted Congress and the NAACP for help remedying discrimination at the Board.

Where do we begin?

First we chuckle at the notion that every Board attorney fits into one of three categories ("exceptional, commendable, and proficient"), as this ranking system leaves out any possibility that a Board employee does less than "proficient" work. Given the many decisions where the NLRB has been slapped down by appellate courts for faulty logic and abuse of discretion — particularly in cases involving individual employees dissenting from union activity — it would seem that a Board attorney could easily earn a ranking of "deficient" or worse.

Still, Liebman’s apparent hypocrisy raises eyebrows. After years of carrying Big Labor’s water and working to shove forced unionism down the throats of both employers and individual employees (and she apparently also views her quasi-judicial role to essentially include lobbying for Big Labor’s coercive card check bill), Liebman suddenly finds the tables turned. The union activist now stands accused of threats, reprisals, and discrimination against employees by the very union officials that she has worked overtime to empower.

Meanwhile, these union bosses praise NLRB Chairman Peter Schaumber who Liebman has derisively referred to as a promoter of an "individual rights regime." (An individual rights regime? My lands – how positively awful!)

If we thought the situation would make Liebman more sympathetic to employee free choice and individual rights, the whole experience could be a nice little learning experience for her. But we won’t hold our breath.