{"id":476584,"date":"2010-03-26T17:21:06","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T21:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/craig-becker-big-labor-s-big-ally-41437\/"},"modified":"2010-03-26T17:21:06","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T21:21:06","slug":"craig-becker-big-labor%c2%92s-big-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/476584","title":{"rendered":"Craig Becker: Big Labor\u0092s Big Ally"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 03.26.10 10:00 AM posted by Ryan O’Donnell<\/p>\n

\n<ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ACORN100326.jpg">\"\"<\/p>It\u0092s hard not to sympathize with organized labor\u0097at least to some extent. After all, during the 2008 elections, unions donated roughly half a billion dollars to Democrats, and so far have few legislative victories to show for their efforts; the <ahref="http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Reports\/2008\/08\/Employee-Free-Choice-Act-Effectively-Eliminates-Secret-Ballot-Organizing-Elections">Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the <ahref="http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Reports\/2009\/05\/How-the-RESPECT-Act-Hurts-Companies-and-Employees-Alike">Respect Act, and the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act have all stalled in Congress.<\/p>\n

Union leaders were further outraged by <ahref="http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/news\/2010-02-09\/becker-labor-board-nomination-held-up-after-senate-cloture-vote.html">last month\u0092s bipartisan Senate vote against Craig Becker<ahref="http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/news\/2010-02-09\/becker-labor-board-nomination-held-up-after-senate-cloture-vote.html">, President Obama\u0092s nominee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Rather than accept another setback, however, Big Labor and its partisan allies in the White House are going on the offensive: <ahref="http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/aponline\/2010\/03\/25\/us\/politics\/AP-US-Labor-Board-Nominee.html">Obama is planning to use a recess appointment to place Becker on the NLRB. Doing so would not only disregard the Senate\u0092s constitutional responsibility of advice and consent, but, according to all 41 Senate Republicans, would<ahref="http:\/\/hatch.senate.gov\/public\/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRel ease_id=95b6b446-1b78-be3e-e0da-382faff34005"> \u0093institute far-reaching changes in labor law policy far exceeding the Board\u0092s authority and by-passing the role of Congress\u0094\u0097changes that, coincidentally, happen to mirror organized labor\u0092s stalled legislative agenda.<spanid="more-29927"><\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that Obama must resort to a recess appointment for Becker is itself a sign of weakness. When Becker was nominated in 2009, Democrats held 60 seats, a filibuster-proof majority. Yet Becker\u0092s confirmation mustered only 52 votes for cloture in February, leaving him in limbo. Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D\u0096AR) and Ben Nelson (D\u0096NE) both voted against Becker.<\/p>\n

With the loss of an additional Senate seat to Scott Brown (R-MA) and the growing unlikelihood of Becker\u0092s confirmation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has changed his tune on recess appointments. Reid went to great lengths to block President George W. Bush from making recess appointments by keeping the Senate in pro forma session. Now, however, Reid says, \u0093<ahref="http:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/stories\/0210\/32653.html">What alternative do we have?\u0094 If organized labor\u0092s agenda is going to be enacted without having to pass through Congress, then the answer is none.<\/p>\n

After all, who needs legislation when an ideologically pro-union recess appointee like Becker can change the nation\u0092s labor laws without public scrutiny or congressional review? As Becker notes, labor \u0093reforms\u0094 that failed to pass Congress, such as EFCA, can \u0093<ahref="http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2010\/mar\/25\/unions-eye-new-pools-for-pensions\/?page=4">be achieved with almost no alteration of the statutory framework\u0094 (and all the messy debate and public scrutiny that comes with it) by NLRB rulemaking and case-by-case decisions.<\/p>\n

A review of his writings, especially his article, \u0093Democracy in the Workplace: Union Representation Elections and Federal Labor Law,\u0094 reveals that, if appointed to the NLRB, Becker would change America\u0092s labor laws in ways that even the most labor-friendly legislator could only dream of. For instance, think EFCA\u0092s elimination of the secret ballot via \u0093card check\u0094 would hurt employees? Becker doesn\u0092t. In fact, he would extend EFCA\u0092s philosophical foundations to an eye-popping extreme: Becker doesn\u0092t only support \u0093automatic certification by \u0091non-electoral means\u0092 (e.g. card check) or eliminating the option of \u0091no union\u0092 from the ballot\u0097he would leave employers with \u0093no<\/i> role in union organizing campaigns and in union representation elections.\u0094<\/p>\n

Like EFCA, the RESPECT Act has also failed to garner legislative\u0097let alone public\u0097support. Becker, however, in an article predating the introduction of the RESPECT Act, has signaled that he favors limiting which workers the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) classifies as supervisors. This limiting would be done, of course, not through Congress and a revision of statutory language but through the NLRB.<\/p>\n

Even if Becker\u0092s policies were remotely mainstream, his role as <ahref="http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB124226652880418035.html">ALF-CIO\/SEIU super lawyer, his prior work for Obama, and his associations with ACORN all raise questions about his nomination. Becker is currently associate general counsel for the SEIU, the same position he held when, as part of the Obama transition team, Becker drafted <ahref="http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the_press_office\/notificiation_of_employee_rights_under_federal_lab or_laws\/">Executive Order 13496, \u0093requiring government contractors and subcontractors to post a Notice of Employees Rights under Federal Labor Laws.\u0094 Although Becker claimed he was on <ahref="http:\/\/help.senate.gov\/Hearings\/2009_10_21_E\/Becker_QFR.pdf.">\u0093vacation\u0094 while working with the Obama transition team, allowing a high-ranking, paid member of organized labor to draft executive orders benefiting (surprise!) organized labor contradicts the President\u0092s pledge to enforce a high standard of government transparency.<\/p>\n

And then there is the ACORN issue. Although Becker rejects charges that he has ever done work for ACORN, he did admit he \u0093worked with and provided advice to\u0094 SEIU Local 880 in Chicago. <ahref="http:\/\/biggovernment.com\/dloos\/2009\/10\/14\/investigate-chicago-seiu-880s-acorn-rathke-connection\/">Yes, that SEIU Local 880 in Chicago. In fact, ACORN co-founder Wade Rathke has praised Becker for his \u0093<ahref="http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704107204574471393545371128.html"> contributions.\u0094<\/p>\n

Given both Mr. Becker\u0092s radical vision for U.S. labor policy, and his close ties to the current Administration, a recess appointment to the NLRB is grossly inappropriate.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/03\/26\/…%99s-big-ally\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 03.26.10 10:00 AM posted by Ryan O’Donnell <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ACORN100326.jpg"><\/p>It\u0092s hard not to sympathize with organized labor\u0097at least to some extent. After all, during the 2008 elections, unions donated roughly half a billion dollars to Democrats, and so far have few legislative victories to show for their efforts; the <ahref="http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Reports\/2008\/08\/Employee-Free-Choice-Act-Effectively-Eliminates-Secret-Ballot-Organizing-Elections">Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the <ahref="http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Reports\/2009\/05\/How-the-RESPECT-Act-Hurts-Companies-and-Employees-Alike">Respect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}