India’s Industry Helps Open Door to World

The New York Times

Sunday, April 01, 2012

India’s Industry Helps Open Door to World

By JIM YARDLEY

LAHORE, Pakistan — On the day the Indian trade delegation came across the border, Pakistan was having another political crisis. The prime minister was embroiled in a showdown with the country’s Supreme Court. Early elections were rumored. And Islamists had just staged a rally in Karachi to protest “foreign intervention” on Pakistani soil.

Not, perhaps, the perfect moment to hammer out closer trade ties.

Yet Rajiv Kumar, a leader of the Indian delegation, was pleased. It was mid-February, and his business group was staging the first Indian trade show ever held in Pakistan. Tens of thousands of visitors would attend during three days. And Indian and Pakistani business leaders, as well as both countries’ commerce ministers, swapped cards, sipped tea and feasted at lavish banquets. “Look at this!” Mr. Kumar exclaimed as his car rolled up to the convention center here in Lahore, where crowds were thronging for the trade show. “My God! Quite good, I’d say.”

One truism about the tortured relationship between India and Pakistan is that there is never a perfect moment. For six decades, through three wars and one nuclear standoff, diplomats have tried, and failed, to improve relations. Now, the private sector is giving it a shot. Trade has become the most promising opening in the latest round of diplomacy, as progress remains largely stalled on tough issues like terrorism, water rights and the status of Kashmir.

The foray into Pakistan is further proof of the increasingly important role of India’s private sector in foreign policy. India’s leaders, eager for a bigger footprint in global affairs, now aspire to a permanent seat on an expanded United Nations Security Council. But the Indian Foreign Service, though consisting of top-notch officers, is too understaffed to provide a comprehensive global presence.

To compensate, the government often relies on the private sector to serve as an intermediary abroad. India’s two leading business groups — C.I.I. (the Confederation of Indian Industry) and Ficci (the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) — now have offices around the world and sponsor informal diplomatic dialogues between India and countries like Japan, China, Singapore and the United States.

U.S. Chamber Joins Challenge to NLRB Appointments

Says Dubious Appointments Have Further Eroded NLRB’s Credibility

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) today moved for leave to intervene in a lawsuit to challenge the authority of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to adjudicate charges absent a three-member quorum. The Chamber and CDW seek a swift and decisive ruling whether the president’s dubious recess appointments of Sharon Block, Terence F. Flynn, and Richard Griffin to the NLRB unlawfully circumvented the Senate’s constitutional power to provide advice and consent to the appointment of executive branch officers. The case, Noel Canning v. National Labor Relations Board, is before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

“Appointing three of five members to the NLRB in a legally questionable way casts doubt on the work of the entire agency,” said Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the Chamber. “We cautioned in January that shoehorning these nominees into office in this controversial way would throw the legal validity of every decision of the Board into question.  Our concern has now become a reality. We are simply asking the courts to sort out the question of the NLRB’s authority quickly, so that employers and employees alike can have predictability and certainty.”

Noel Canning, a small business operating in Washington state, appealed a ruling by the NLRB that the company had violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The Chamber’s public policy law firm, the National Chamber Litigation Center, filed a motion on behalf of the Chamber for leave to intervene in the case in support of Noel Canning. The Chamber seeks to argue that the three attempted recess appointments were not legally effective because the President made them when the Senate was in session, not in recess. Accordingly, the Board lacks the statutorily required quorum of at least three members to adjudicate disputes and issue rules.

“Allowing the Board to act when it may not have a quorum adds even more uncertainty to our economic climate,” continued Donohue. “That is why we are looking to join a small business lawsuit to challenge these appointments—we want the authority of the Board clarified. Employers and employees need to know what it means when the NLRB orders an employer to bargain with a union, to modify its compensation and benefit plans, or to cease contracting work—to offer just a few examples.  Is the order legally rendered, or will it be invalidated in the future?  Without this kind of certainty, we cannot foster an environment that will lead to economic growth and job creation.”

The Chamber’s motion for leave to intervene is available here: http://www.chamberlitigation.com/noel-canning-v-national-labor-relations-board