President Obama will likely appoint Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during the Congressional recess.
A recess appointment would signal that the President has an antidote to Republican obstructionism that he does not fear using. Craig Becker is a qualified nominee who falls in with the normal set of Democratic appointments to the NLRB. He should get his appointment.
Who is Craig Becker?
Craig Becker: Big Labor’s Big Ally
Union leaders were further outraged by last month’s bipartisan Senate vote against Craig Becker, President Obama’s 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: Obama is planning to use a recess appointment to place Becker on the NLRB. Doing so would not only disregard the Senate’s constitutional responsibility of advice and consent, but, according to all 41 Senate Republicans, would “institute far-reaching changes in labor law policy far exceeding the Board’s authority and by-passing the role of Congress”—changes that, coincidentally, happen to mirror organized labor’s stalled legislative agenda.
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’s confirmation mustered only 52 votes for cloture in February, leaving him in limbo. Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D–AR) and Ben Nelson (D–NE) both voted against Becker.
A review of his writings, especially his article, “Democracy in the Workplace: Union Representation Elections and Federal Labor Law,” reveals that, if appointed to the NLRB, Becker would change America’s labor laws in ways that even the most labor-friendly legislator could only dream of. For instance, think EFCA’s elimination of the secret ballot via “card check” would hurt employees? Becker doesn’t. In fact, he would extend EFCA’s philosophical foundations to an eye-popping extreme: Becker doesn’t only support “automatic certification by ‘non-electoral means’ (e.g. card check) or eliminating the option of ‘no union’ from the ballot—he would leave employers with “no role in union organizing campaigns and in union representation elections.”
Like EFCA, the RESPECT Act has also failed to garner legislative—let alone public—support. 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.
Even if Becker’s policies were remotely mainstream, his role as 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 Executive Order 13496, “requiring government contractors and subcontractors to post a Notice of Employees Rights under Federal Labor Laws.” Although Becker claimed he was on “vacation” 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’s pledge to enforce a high standard of government transparency.
And then there is the ACORN issue. Although Becker rejects charges that he has ever done work for ACORN, he did admit he “worked with and provided advice to” SEIU Local 880 in Chicago. Yes, that SEIU Local 880 in Chicago. In fact, ACORN co-founder Wade Rathke has praised Becker for his “contributions.”
Why You Should Know About Craig Becker (and Why You Need to Be Worried)
Craig Becker is President Obama’s nominee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and you should be afraid…very, very afraid.
In Becker’s opinion, business owners, many of whom are small business owners that collectively employee 50 million Americans, have “no legally cognizable interest” in one of the most significant decisions impacting the potential future success of their company. But Becker takes his views one step further and would even deny employers the ability to alert authorities to illegal union activity during an election campaign ...
To suggest that employers should have no role in the unionization process, as Mr. Becker does, is a point of view that is outside of the mainstream and one that puts him at odds with the current practices of the NLRB.
Just as Mr. Becker views employers as obstacles to increased unionization, he similarly views workers ability to democratically choose union representation as problematic:
“Just as U.S. Citizens cannot opt against having a congressman, workers should not be able to choose against having a union as their monopoly-bargaining agent.”
Mr. Becker wholeheartedly believes that employers and workers preferences are second to union goals, namely increased membership. The NLRB is entrusted with interpreting and enforcing the NLRA, laws which apply to nearly every American business. As a member of the NLRB, Mr. Becker would be able to implement his radical ideas and shape labor laws for the indefinite future.
Craig Becker: By Hook or By Crook, Big Labor Wants Card Check
It appears Big Labor will stop at nothing to impose card check forced unionism on American workers and job-providers. Public opposition from energized Right to Work supporters and other concerned Americans to the draconian card check bill -- which eliminates the secret ballot in workplace unionization drives, opens up workers to intimidating "home visits," and allows government bureaucrats to impose contracts on workers -- has thus far stalled the legislation in the Senate.
On Tuesday, in what may have been a test vote on card check, the Senate rejected an attempt to move President Obama's nomination of radical union lawyer Craig Becker to a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the quasi-judicial agency that administers federal labor law. Becker's writings indicated a willingness to impose the card check forced unionism mechanism through NLRB rules, without even a Congressional vote.
But despite this setback union officials aren't giving up on card check, and neither are the forced unionism proponents in the Obama Administration. The Daily Caller reports that White House staffers are considering a new executive order that could effectively require all federal contractors to submit their workers to coercive card check campaigns ...
Meet Craig Becker, labor's secret weapon.
Current law on organizing provides advantages and restrictions for both sides. Employers are required to provide union reps with a list of employees and their addresses. Union organizers can visit employees at home, but companies cannot. Organizers can also make promises to employees (such as obtaining raises), which employers cannot. Companies can argue their position at a work site up to 24 hours before an election, but they are barred from coercing employees. Both sides get a seat at the table during NLRB hearings about the scope of an election or complaints about how it was conducted.
Mr. Becker has other ideas. In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, he explained that traditional notions of democracy should not apply in union elections. He wrote that employers should be barred from attending NLRB hearings about elections, and from challenging election results even amid evidence of union misconduct. He believes elections should be removed from work sites and held on "neutral grounds," or via mail ballots. Employers should also be barred from "placing observers at the polls to challenge ballots."
More extraordinary, Mr. Becker advocated a new "body of campaign rules" that would severely limit the ability of employers to argue against unionization. He argued that any meeting a company holds that involves a "captive audience" ought to be grounds for overturning an election. If a company wants to distribute leaflets that oppose the union, for example, Mr. Becker said it must allow union access to its private property to do the same.
Mr. Becker isn't clear about which of these rules can be implemented by NLRB fiat, and which would require an act of Congress, but his mindset is clear enough. He's willing to push NLRB discretion as far as possible to tilt today's labor rules in favor of easier unionization.
Radical SEIU lawyer’s NLRB nomination clears Senate committee
