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Old 11-22-2016, 06:41 PM   #2607
photon
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Lol the conflict of interest scenarios just get more and more convoluted. It's Slate but the description of the scenario isn't partisan. This is regarding workers at Trump's Vegas Hotel that voted to join a union.

In the lead-up to the vote, the hotel company spent more than $500,000 on a union-busting consulting firm. After losing the vote, Trump’s company filed 15 complaints about the election, all of which were withdrawn or dismissed by the National Labor Relations Board. Three weeks ago, the NLRB ruled the hotel must recognize the union and that in refusing to do so it had been in violation of federal law. Trump and Ruffin have appealed that ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The union now finds itself in an unusual position twice over. First, this is the most confrontational stance that Local 226, which has 57,000 members in Nevada, has encountered from a major hotel. Second, its opponent—in court, and across the bargaining table—is the president-elect of the United States.

At a basic level, this will create a conflict of interest between the interests of Donald Trump the president and Donald Trump the businessman.

...

Trump will soon have the power to fill the two vacanct spots on the five-person NLRB, shifting the board’s composition to a Republican majority. He will later have the opportunity to appoint the board’s general counsel, who decides what cases come before the board. Those officials would then be in the position to rule on future disputes between the union and management at his hotel.

“The question for us is: Will Trump as president use the power he has to interfere given he has a financial interest in the outcome?” says Bethany Khan, a spokesperson for the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas.
The NLRB is an independent federal agency with no enforcement power. Its ruling that Trump and Ruffin must begin to bargain with the union will be enforced or overturned by the D.C. Court of Appeals. Incidentally, the chief judge on that court is Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court. As a candidate, Trump had encouraged Republican senators not to hold hearings on Garland’s confirmation. Now, Garland will rule on Trump’s hotel while Trump will fill what might have been Garland's place on the Supreme Court.

Trump will also (in time) appoint judges to the D.C. Circuit, which rules on cases brought against federal agencies like the NLRB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Finally, Trump (the hotel tycoon) could choose to appeal the D.C. Circuit's judgment to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court would probably not agree to hear the case. But if it did, the NLRB would be represented by the Justice Department, whose head would be appointed by Donald Trump (the president of the United States). Trump v. Trump.


http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/...onization.html
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