Posts Tagged ‘National Labor Relations Board’
Was That “Hinge” or Fringe RE: Card Check King?
Over at NPR sits an interesting argument: The president can have a “hinge” moment “to do something he hasn’t done particularly well during his first year in office: successfully defy his opponents and, at the same time, reassure his most loyal supporters.”
The way he can achieve such a political victory? Force through the installation of the Card Check King, otherwise known as National Labor Relations Board nominee — and SEIU and AFL-CIO lawyer — Craig Becker.
Unfortunately for employers, employees, and everyone else, Becker is off the wall. Those aren’t our words, they’re the words of a top Senator, Orrin Hatch.
So, we ask: Would winning a Becker battle be a “hinge” moment or a “fringe” moment? We think the facts speak for themselves, but ask yourself one final question: If Becker weren’t so far outside the mainstream and so dedicated to decreasing employer and employee speech at the expense of union power, would the powerful SEIU rest so many of its hopes on him?
Sen. Hatch Says Down the Hatch with NLRB Nominee Craig Becker
Our friends at Shopfloor.org put as a question to Sen. Orrin Hatch whether the President should continue pushing for Craig Becker to sit on the National Labor Relations Board.
The answer? Nope. No. Nein. The Senator said:
The man is off the wall. He’s very smart, I mean, I don’t mean to demean him. He’s a smart man. In fact that’s one of the problems. He will do any thing to help the SEIU and the AFL-CIO. Anything!
And that includes doing by regulation at the NLRB that which you could never get through legislation, and once they do that, I think it would be not only unconstitutional, but, you know, illegal, but it would take years all the way through the Supreme Court to change it. And that’s what they’re up to.
I can’t believe the president would put Becker up there, knowing how very …That was even a bipartisan vote against Becker, by the way, and I’d be very surprised if he did that.
Fantastic work, as always, by Carter Wood and the Shopfloor team.
Of course, we believe in positive solutions, so we offer: If the President is looking for a gentle way to break with Big Labor on this issue, here are 101 ways to say no.
Even Without Becker, Politicizing The NLRB
Carter Wood has a fantastic post over at Shopfloor on politicizing the National Labor Relations Board and points to a rash of rash press statements made by the Board’s Chair, Wilma Liebman. That an NLRB chair is even making such statements is cause for concert, let along her championing the nomination of another individual (let alone, again, that of far-out Craig Becker).
Wood offers:
These are all familiar discussions in the political sphere and in policy disputes. But the NLRB is a quasi-judicial agency, “deciding cases based on formal records and hearings.” Board members perform an appellate function by ruling on disputes between employers and employees, business and organized labor. By weighing in on the side of labor — and the highlighted remarks implicitly do so — Liebman casts doubt on her ability to be a disinterested referee.
Click over for the entire post, which is today’s must-read item.
Derailing The Labor Train?
Brian Johnson, writing over at The Daily Caller:
Although over 75 percent of Americans disapprove of card-check, the NLRB can implement identical policy, making the vote for Becker so significant. Labor viewed his defeat as a defeat for de-facto card-check, as Becker could change labor law via an appointment to the board. Specifically, Becker would help the unions get more of the type of card-check certifications they already can achieve under law, by ignoring or dismissing the complaints filed by employers and individual workers. This gives the unions a much freer hand to exercise their extortionate and deceptive means of getting signatures and pressuring employers to accept the signatures in lieu of votes.
A Quick Question on The NLRB
Who, outside of labor lawyers and policy wonks, can remember the last time Americans knew the name of a nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, usually an obscure body?
Now we get “Unions Push White House to Appoint Becker” as a headline in the Wall Street Journal.
The proximate issue — the nomination of an individual whose writings have shown contempt for employers to a seat in which we expect impartiality between unions and employers — is of course very critical. The functioning of the Board, as well as its integrity, are on the line.
But more than that, it speaks volumes that the president has nominated someone so far outside the mainstream that it has raised sufficient furor to raise the Board’s profile in the public mind. That doesn’t speak well of … well, many things.
It also suggests the Board’s rulings, should Mr. Becker be appointed, will be scrutinized more than ever and have doubt immediately cast about their fairness. It also suggests that future nominees will have doubt cast about their qualifications to govern effectively and fairly.
Today’s Best Card Check Reading
Mark Tapscott writes:
This week’s Big Labor payback was another NLRB appointment, that of radical labor lawyer Craig Becker as the board’s chairman. Becker wanted to reshape labor law to enable union bosses to ride roughshod of company owners and managers and he’s made it clear he will use his NLRB job to get there.
But, with Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., promising to filibuster Becker’s nomination and Republicans united in opposition, Becker’s nomination was shot down on a 52-33 vote. So much for the memo from SEIU’s legislative consultant Alison Reardon that Thompson made public yesterday. Reardon said SEIU expected Senate Democrats to show up and do what they’re told when the Becker showdown came.
Or to put it another way, the union bosses expect the politicians they’ve bought to stay bought.
