It seems as if National Labor Relations Board lawyer Lafe Solomon was trying to be a comedian when he wrote numerous emails in April 2011 about the Boeing complaint filed by Big Labor when it decided to move production facilities to South Carolina.
In a recent interview with The Hill newspaper, Solomon attempted to own up to a number of insensitive and otherwise sophomoric emails, including one in which he joked about “screw[ing] up the U.S. economy.”
“I now understand why people write, ‘LOL’ or put smiley faces or frowny faces on emails,” joked Solomon, 62. “Because when looked at with just the literal writing of them, they can be misread or misinterpreted.”
Solomon was the only one who knew that he was being sarcastic when he wrote to then-NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Lieberman about the Boeing complaint that: “You go to Geneva and I get a job with airbus. We screwed up the [U.S.] economy and now we can tackle Europe.”
“That’s why I should have written LOL at the end of them,” Solomon told The Hill, attempting to sound contrite about the affair.
Interestingly enough, Solomon still gets to keep his job as the NLRB’s “top lawyer” despite the sentiment expressed in the emails. Big Labor friends would like to keep it that way. But, in the meantime, Congress has already subpoenaed Solomon with 11 Senators recently asking President Obama to withdraw the lawyer’s nomination.