Obama uses recess appointment to put radical Becker on NLRB

Despite bipartisan opposition to his being named to the National Labor Relations Board, President Obama used a recess appointment to place radical labor lawyer Craig Becker on that body.

Becker, who has ties to fellow-radicals SEIU, favors card check, a free-to-peek petition method of union-organizing that could do away with the secret-ballot used in most workplace situations when employees make the decision whether to join a union.

From a 1950s high of more than one-third of the private-sector workforce, now just 7.2 percent of private-sector employees belong to a union. Big Labor and their Democratic enablers will cry "union-busting," but over those same decades, population growth has been the strongest in right to work states such as Texas and Florida.

Card check would increase union membership, as well as union coffers and bail out, albeit temporarily, failing union pension funds. It would also mean higher unemployment.

Yet again, I have to ask: What happened to Obama's laser focus on jobs?

I have plenty more on this unhappy story.

First, from a press release from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released the following statement on the President’s decision to recess appoint Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

"The President's decision to override bipartisan Senate rejection of Craig Becker's nomination is yet another episode of choosing a partisan path despite bipartisan opposition. The President previously held that appointing an individual in this manner meant that the nominee would have 'less credibility,' and that assessment certainly fits this nomination. Additionally stunning is the administration's decision to recess appoint two Democrat nominees to the NLRB and leave the Republican behind. This is a purely partisan move that will make a traditionally bipartisan labor board an unbalanced agenda-driven panel."

BACKGROUND:
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL) On A Recess Appointee: "To Some Degree, He's Damaged Goods" "To some degree, he's damaged goods … Not in the history of United Nations representatives have we ever had a recess appointment, somebody who couldn't get through a nomination in the Senate. And I think that that means that we will have less credibility and ironically be less equipped to reform the United Nations in the way that it needs to be reformed." ("Bush Sends Bolton To U.N." The [Springfield, IL] State Journal-Register, 8/2/05)

From the Workforce Fairness Institute:

Washington, D.C. (March 27, 2010) – The Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) today released the following statement in response to news reports that President Obama has used a recess appointment to place Craig Becker on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB):

"With today's recess appointment, President Obama has completely undone his own argument concerning job creation and traded away any credibility his administration might have on the economy. Craig Becker's nomination to the National Labor Relations Board will only result in higher unemployment and more burdens on small businesses due to his willingness to enact administratively portions of the Employee 'Forced' Choice Act. Let's be frank about what Becker's recess appointment really is; it’s a payoff to union bosses at the expense of America’s employers and employees. Our nation’s job creators will not soon forget that the country’s chief executive turned his back on them in favor of rewarding political patrons advocating job-killing policies."

Here is an excerpt from a Townhall article by Katie Packer of the WFI:

Craig Becker's nomination is a threat to the economy because he believes small businesses "should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practices case" meaning "employers have no standing to assert their employees' right to fair representation." These are Becker's own words, which were published in the University of Minnesota Law Review in 1993.

This extreme nominee believes employers should have no "legal standing" in the unionization process of their own workplace. Really? So the AFL-CIO's Rich Trumka and the SEIU's Andy Stern should have a voice in the unionization process and the guy who started the business should not? It would be laughable if it weren't so serious.

Becker also represents a threat to small business owners as he would almost certainly attempt to impose anti-job creation policies through the NLRB, which could not be achieved through Congressional action.

In fact, Stewart Acuff, a special assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO wrote recently when speaking of EFCA, "[w]e are very close to the 60 votes we need. It [sic] we aren't able to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, we will work with President Obama and Vice President Biden and their appointees to the National Labor Relations Board to change the rules governing forming a union through administrative action..."

Related posts:

Entire GOP Senate caucus urges Obama not to appoint radical Becker to NLRB
Sneak attack: Obama likely to make recess appointment of radical Craig Becker to NLRB
Becker nomination fails in Senate
Unions look to PLAs to bail out their failing pensions
ObamaCare's head-on collision against jobs
ObamaCare a death star-laser against jobs
AFL-CIO official's demagoguery on the so-called Employee Free Choice Act
Union members: More equal than others in Obama's America
Nonsense from a South Dakota AFL-CIO official about card check

Technorati tags: news economy gop Republican labor unions organized labor card check efca craig becker democrats politics jobs economy Senate McConnell Kentucky