For the vast majority of America’s private-sector workplaces, the nearly week-old government shutdown has provided a welcome, but temporary reprieve from assaults by unions accustomed to using Obama’s pro-union National Labor Relations Board.

A notice on the NLRB’s website explains the effects the shutdown is having on the NLRB:

The National Labor Relations Board is currently closed due to a lapse in appropriated funds…

Only such government activities necessary to prevent an imminent threat to the safety of human life or the protection of property may be undertaken in the absence of specific budget authority. [Emphasis added.]

In preparing for the shutdown, the National Labor Relations Board published its contingency plan [in PDF] informing the public that 1600 of its 1611 would be furloughed. As a result, all NLRB proceedings “will be postponed indefinitely.”

According to attorney Mark Carter:

The NLRB has notified parties with hearings and elections after October 11 that they will be notified on the Tuesday preceding the scheduled event whether their proceeding will take place. For example, if a representational election is scheduled for October 18, the NLRB will communicate with the parties on October 15 to notify them whether their election will take place or be postponed, assuming that non-essential NLRB personnel have returned to the workplace by October 15.

Thus, for the vast majority of America’s workplaces, there is a silver lining in Barack Obama’s refusal to negotiate over ObamaCare: With his shutting the government down, as the Center for Union Facts notes, Obama has also, ironically, crippled union bosses’ main weapon for assaulting union-free America via…

• Shake down major American job-creators and effectively force them to surrender to union demands;
• Continue decimating decades-old legal precedents established to protect workers’ rights;
• Give legitimacy to the actions of Big Labor front groups known as worker centers;
• Last but not least, these unelected bureaucrats won’t be able to issue pro-labor, anti-worker rulings federal courts must surely reject, such as the pro-unionization “poster requirement” that was stricken by multiple courts of appeal

Relatedly, the Department of Labor has furloughed 82% of its employees and the EEOC has furloughed 95% of its employees.

In essence, frivolous lawsuits and union assaults have been placed on hold “indefinitely”–or until either the Republican-led House of Representatives or the White House blinks, whichever comes sooner.

No wonder there is not a huge outcry from the business community against the government shutdown.

Update: Not all is lost for union bosses. Apparently, the Obama administration is allowing union reps to work during the government shutdown.

Update II: Shutdown delays FSI union vote
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“Truth isn’t mean. It’s truth.”
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

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