That nutty L.A. school board is at it again.

Nearly five years ago, the school board passed a resolution saying local car washes should support any unionizing efforts by their employees. I opined back then that since the Los Angeles Unified School District had such a dismal record of running its own business (the graduation rate was then the second worst in the nation at 41 percent), the school board had absolutely no moral authority to instruct others how to run theirs.

But hey, at least the car washes were local. Last week, the school board passed a similar resolution about a company in Fresno, more than 200 miles away. And a company the district apparently doesn’t even have a contract with.

Nonetheless, the school board took time to vote (it was 6-0 with one abstention) on a resolution that calls on the board to be updated on any labor practices by Gerawan Farming just in case it tries to sell any food to the district. Board member Steve Zimmer, who sponsored the resolution, reportedly said it was meant to convey that the board will “stand with the United Farm Workers in this contract fight.”

It’s sad the school board got suckered in by the UFW’s lobbying. Gerawan has a long and complex relationship with the UFW; there’s a significant question whether the workers at Gerawan even want the union. A decertification election was held a couple of years ago, but the union has blocked the vote from being counted.

For the L.A. school board to wag its finger in Gerawan’s face is like Donald Sterling lecturing you about the importance of good race relations.

And while the district, to its credit, has improved its graduation rate, it is still an operation so inept that it can’t get iPads to its students without scandal. Oh, and remember that teacher who fed his semen to students? It turns out that the district had been alerted to his bizarre behavior for decades but apparently didn’t take much action. Too busy looking for businesses to criticize, apparently.

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When a federal mediator was appointed last month, you might have thought some resolution finally was near in the lingering slowdown at the ports.

But you would’ve thought wrong. If anything, tensions have worsened.

The union representing dockworkers at West Coast ports last week sent a letter to its members claiming that now the association negotiating on behalf of the shipping companies has resorted to a low PR campaign to “divide the union.”

The shippers association last week decided not to bring in workers this weekend to offload ships, depriving workers of hours. The docks are already jammed with previously offloaded containers that the union is moving at a molasses-slow pace, the shippers say, and the union is effectively staging a strike with pay.

Now this may seem like your typical, nasty management-labor food fight except this one really hurts. As cargo ships line up and sit in the harbor, all manner of local manufacturers, apparel makers, toy importers, etc., are slowly starving.

In a similar showdown at the ports in 2002, President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act. It allows the president to intervene in strikes – or potential strikes, like the current situation – if there is a national emergency at stake. The act makes workers return to their jobs and forces both sides to bargain.

It’s time for President Barack Obama to invoke Taft-Hartley. Or at least threaten to do so by a date certain.

As Gary Toebben of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce put it: “Somebody has to speak up for Americans who are not at the … bargaining table but who have jobs and economic well-being to lose if our ports do not return to maximum operating efficiency.”

Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].