The Obama administration’s regulatory onslaught had few culprits that inflicted more damage on American businesses than Mark Pearce. He has served as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board for the past six years, and during his tenure the NLRB became the quintessential example of the regulatory state run amok.
Unfortunately, the board under Pearce’s leadership has created fear that discouraged investment and hobbled economic growth. For this reason, President Trump should not reappoint Pearce when his term on the NLRB expires Monday.
Knowing there would be a newly reconstituted NLRB contributed to the surge in business optimism following President Trump’s election – a surge that continues to this day. Pearce’s reappointment to the board when his term expires would have the opposite effect.
Under Pearce, the NLRB, was grossly anti-employee (particularly private sector employees who did not want to join a union) and anti-business, consistently favoring big labor at the expense of everyday Americans. Pearce was the mastermind for much of the progressive establishment’s anti-business labor agenda – an agenda he pushed without regard for existing law.
By one well-documented analysis, Pearce presided over the most partisan NLRB in history, reversing many years of precedent in about 90 cases, disregarding longstanding labor-management policies, and always in favor of big labor. It will take years for a new board to undo the damage.
For example, Pearce was the architect of the expanded “joint employer” rule, which flipped decades of labor law on its head to make it easier to unionize and sue franchise brands, like the ones I ran as CEO for restaurant chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. Simply put, the rule made union organizing easier by allowing labor bosses to organize both franchisers and their franchisees as one entity, rather than having to organize each individual franchisee.
Should this rule survive, franchisers will be forced to take control of their franchisees’ employment practices – they do not control them now – reducing the ability of franchisees to control their bottom lines and run their businesses as independent entrepreneurs.
This article originally appears on FoxNexs.com on August 23, 2018. Read the full article here
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