Judge issues injunction against NLRB in favor of SpaceX
A U.S. federal district judge today issued an injunction against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), blocking any further action on its complaint against SpaceX until the courts rule on the constitutionality of that complaint, accepting SpaceX’s position that the NLRB’s decision to suspend that complaint pending a court decision was irrelevant.
The NLRB has sued SpaceX, claiming it had violated the labor rights of several former employees because it fired them for criticizing Musk publicly. SpaceX responded by suing the NLRB itself, claiming the law which founded it and allowed it to act as prosecutor, judge, and jury in all cases while also limiting the President’s ability to fire its officials was unconstitutional.
As the case moved through the courts, the NLRB suspended its case against SpaceX. The company however demanded this injunction as well, since it considered that suspension merely a ploy that could be rescinded at any time.
Judge Albright ruled in favor of SpaceX and imposed an injunction as the case proceeds. He said the ruling came in part because of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that restrictions on removal for administrative law judges in the Securities and Exchange Commission are unconstitutional.
You can read the judge’s decision here [pdf]. This quote from it however is very telling:
The questions faced by this Court are whether SpaceX Exploration Technologies Corp. (“SpaceX”) is likely to succeed on the merits in demonstrating that the NLRB Members are unconstitutionally protected from removal and whether NLRB ALJs [administrative law judges] are likewise unconstitutionally protected from removal. Under binding precedent, this Court is satisfied that SpaceX has demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on its claims that Congress has impermissibly protected both the NLRB Members and the NLRB ALJs from the President’s Article II power of removal.
The judge’s decision here was likely influenced strongly by the Supreme Court’s decision in late June that ruled as unconstitutional the SEC’s similar use of administrative law judges. That precedent almost certainly applies directly to SpaceX’s suit against the NLRB. As I noted when the Supreme Court issued its SEC decision:
This decision itself does major damage to the powers of these quasi-government agencies, that for decades have ruled like tyrants over American business owners. As SpaceX’s complaint notes, the members of the NLRB not only filed the complaint against SpaceX, those “same NLRB Members would later preside in a quasi-legislative, quasi-judicial capacity in the unfair labor practice proceeding … and then issue the agency’s ultimate order on whether SpaceX has violated federal labor law.”
In other words, proceedings that used administrative law judges allowed government agencies to act as prosecutor, judge, and jury, all in one. No wonder the accused in these cases almost always had to pay fines.
Forcing them now to go through proper legal channels to enforce their fines and punishments will make it much more difficult for them to win their cases. It might in fact completely undercut their power to regulate anything.
To this I say Hallalujah!
Based on this new court decision, it looks more and more that the courts are going to geld the NLRB’s powers unmercifully.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
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A U.S. federal district judge today issued an injunction against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), blocking any further action on its complaint against SpaceX until the courts rule on the constitutionality of that complaint, accepting SpaceX’s position that the NLRB’s decision to suspend that complaint pending a court decision was irrelevant.
The NLRB has sued SpaceX, claiming it had violated the labor rights of several former employees because it fired them for criticizing Musk publicly. SpaceX responded by suing the NLRB itself, claiming the law which founded it and allowed it to act as prosecutor, judge, and jury in all cases while also limiting the President’s ability to fire its officials was unconstitutional.
As the case moved through the courts, the NLRB suspended its case against SpaceX. The company however demanded this injunction as well, since it considered that suspension merely a ploy that could be rescinded at any time.
Judge Albright ruled in favor of SpaceX and imposed an injunction as the case proceeds. He said the ruling came in part because of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that restrictions on removal for administrative law judges in the Securities and Exchange Commission are unconstitutional.
You can read the judge’s decision here [pdf]. This quote from it however is very telling:
The questions faced by this Court are whether SpaceX Exploration Technologies Corp. (“SpaceX”) is likely to succeed on the merits in demonstrating that the NLRB Members are unconstitutionally protected from removal and whether NLRB ALJs [administrative law judges] are likewise unconstitutionally protected from removal. Under binding precedent, this Court is satisfied that SpaceX has demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on its claims that Congress has impermissibly protected both the NLRB Members and the NLRB ALJs from the President’s Article II power of removal.
The judge’s decision here was likely influenced strongly by the Supreme Court’s decision in late June that ruled as unconstitutional the SEC’s similar use of administrative law judges. That precedent almost certainly applies directly to SpaceX’s suit against the NLRB. As I noted when the Supreme Court issued its SEC decision:
This decision itself does major damage to the powers of these quasi-government agencies, that for decades have ruled like tyrants over American business owners. As SpaceX’s complaint notes, the members of the NLRB not only filed the complaint against SpaceX, those “same NLRB Members would later preside in a quasi-legislative, quasi-judicial capacity in the unfair labor practice proceeding … and then issue the agency’s ultimate order on whether SpaceX has violated federal labor law.”
In other words, proceedings that used administrative law judges allowed government agencies to act as prosecutor, judge, and jury, all in one. No wonder the accused in these cases almost always had to pay fines.
Forcing them now to go through proper legal channels to enforce their fines and punishments will make it much more difficult for them to win their cases. It might in fact completely undercut their power to regulate anything.
To this I say Hallalujah!
Based on this new court decision, it looks more and more that the courts are going to geld the NLRB’s powers unmercifully.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
If I criticized the boss, especially in public, I would expect to be fired. California is an ‘at-will’ state. How this even got to the NLRB is just amazing.
Joe: The NLRB is going to pay badly for taking up this absurd case, as SpaceX is likely going to win in the court, and invalidate most of the agency’s powers.
Amusing that the judge in his decision thinks that the name “SpaceX” comes from the contraction of “SpaceX Exploration.”
The courts are making rulings against the ATF also.
We need The Don to place more judges into power.
Is this a direct result of Chevron being overturned?
David K: Reread my post. This has less to do with the Chevron decision than the SEC decision, which actually is far more significant. Chevron involves who will interpret laws, judges or bureaucrats, and is thus open to different opinions in any specific ruling. The SEC decision instead cut the balls off that agency’s administrative power. If this precedent is followed in the SpaceX case, the NLRB will be neutered as well.
I am more pro labor than many of you…but am glad things broke this way.
Here is hoping NLRB takes up for people fired out of sociological concerns.
Just remember–it wasn’t that long ago that business pushed for “loser pays” laws that would have made folks de-banked and such unable to fight back.
As I write this I am laid up in Grandview Hospital due to blood clots.
My co workers visited me.
No sign of my employers.
Hate on government all you like.
Businessmen were the causes of my family’s misery
Jeff
I hope you get out of the hospital soon.
I attribute your dosses not showing up more to lawyers and the few at the top of the pyramid.
If there is any possibility that you could be sick from your work place in any way they have been told to to stay away just in case something they say while visiting you could be used against them in court.
Clots in the lungs, spot on my kidney.
I have always had nothing but bad luck.
At any rate while I was laid up I saw a hit piece against Elon Musk that is beyond everything.
I hate to say his “unconventional” parenting may have come home to roost–but the same press that didn’t want to talk about the coke head is all up in people’s private affairs here.
Musk is talented–but Borman of old is what you want. Solid–team player, etc