The National Labor Relations Board is one of those dubious government bodies that often manages to avoid bringing too much attention to itself, but under President Obama especially, the independent federal agency is the keeper of the type of big-labor power that damages the free market on the regular. I haven’t paid them much notice since that the Machinists’ opprobrious assault on Boeing last year, but don’t worry, they’re still there, sticking little barbs in the heart of the economy one union whim at a time (after all, the Obama administration needs to keep unions happy — gotta’ keep those Democratic campaign donations coming!).

Last August, the NLRB issued a ruling on a case known as Specialty Healthcare which would essentially allow for the creation of “micro-unions” by allowing small segments of a company’s workers to organize. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is looking to block the ruling’s implementation by introducing an amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill that would ban the use of federal funds for its enforcement.

Graham said he wants to block the NLRB ruling because it has set a precedent where subsets of workers at a worksite can form a union.

“The reason I’m involved is because businesspeople from over the country have indicated to me that this ruling is basically creating chaos in the private sector,” Graham said. “The NLRB is becoming the Grim Reaper of job creation.” …

“You expect an agency not to become a political advocacy group, and this ruling is just creating havoc in the private sector when the private sector is not doing fine,” Graham said. …

In the August 2011 ruling, the NLRB said it should only apply to specific healthcare facilities such as nursing homes. The labor board said 53 certified nursing assistants could form a bargaining unit for a union and exclude other types of employees at the nursing home.

Critics conceded that the NLRB said the ruling should only apply to certain industries, but argued it is still being used elsewhere. …

Schwartz cited the example of the women’s shoe department at a Bergdorf Goodman store forming a union and said the NLRB regional director cited the August 2011 ruling in his decision.

No word yet on whether this is going to gain bipartisan traction, but good for Sen. Graham for pursuing this. We can’t afford to leave any stone unturned in the fight to scale back the rules and regulations strangling our economy, particularly now that unions are going to be pushing to claw back some status after that embarrassing little Wisconsin debacle — an animal is most dangerous when it’s cornered and wounded, and whatnot.