The Terrorists Will Have Won

The National Right to Work Foundation may seem creative for having floated this argument in a recent amicus brief opposing unionization of airport screeners:

there is a risk that the union hierarchy will be infiltrated by a terrorist agent or that the union will be controlled by someone working with terrorists. The terrorist could then use his influence with the union to make it easier for a terrorist colleague to board a plane or to get a bomb through baggage screening. Or the terrorist could more indirectly weaken national security, by organizing a strike or work slow-down.

But actually, that chestnut is already a stale favorite of the NLRB, who overturned Epilepsy Foundation (giving Weingarten-type rights to non-union workers) with this breathless idiocy:

The years after the issuance of Weingarten have seen a rise in the need for investigatory interviews, both in response to new statutes governing the workplace and as a response to new security concerns raised by terrorist attacks on our country. . . . [B]ecause of the events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath, we must now take into account the presence of both real and threatened terrorist attacks. Because of these events, the policy considerations expressed in DuPont have taken on a new vitality. Thus, for the reasons set forth below, we . . . hold that the Weingarten right does not extend to the nonunion workplace.

IBM Corp., 341 NLRB No. 148 (2004).