The top priority for the labor movement during the Obama
administration has been to enact “card check” legislation, which
would deny workers a secret ballot on unionization, and thus
enable labor to rapidly add members through intimidation. While
the most obvious way to make this law would be through the
legislative process, the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act
(EFCA) has been stalled in the Senate. However, Democrats can
also enact “card check” through the regulatory process, which is
one reason why President Obama appointed union lawyer Craig
Becker to be the tie-breaking vote on the National Labor
Relations Board.
The Becker nomination has been held up by Republicans thus far,
but he testified yesterday before the Senate Health Education
Labor and Pensions Comittee, which is expected to approve his
nomination tomorrow. At that point, Becker will need to be
approved by sixty votes in the Senate. Sen. Harry Reid’s office
has
said that the Majority Leader is “committed to doing what is
necessary to bring the nomination to the floor as soon as
possible and get his nomination confirmed.”
The catch is that, right now, even though Scott Brown’s election
has been certified by the Massachusetts Secretary of State and is
merely awaiting Gov. Deval Patrick’s signature tomorrow morning,
Brown isn’t scheduled to be sworn-in until next Thursday,
potentially giving Reid a week to ram through the Becker
nomination. The Boston Globe
reports that Brown’s office is now seeking to be seated
immediately, which would allow him to be in place to help block
it.
In a recent magazine piece, I
explained why Becker’s nomination was so worrisome:
Currently, there are only two members on the five-member NRLB
— one is a Republican and the other a Democrat. To tilt the
balance of the board, Obama tapped two union lawyers (Craig
Becker and Mark Pearce). He also appointed a Republican Senate
staffer, Brian E. Hayes, in hopes it would dissuade Republican
senators from blocking the other two.
Becker, a longtime labor activist, is the associate general
counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The left-wing magazine In These Times wrote that he
“helped lay the intellectual foundation for the Employee Free
Choice Act.” More relevantly, he wrote a law review article
arguing that the major aims of EFCA could be achieved through
rulings by the regulatory body to which Obama has appointed
him.
“This is somebody who has announced ahead of time that he
thinks he can do much of the left’s agenda through the
regulatory process,” Grover Norquist, president of Americans
for Tax Reform, said in an interview with TAS. “It’s
one thing for him to say he intends to do something, but when
you look at it, where are the guardrails? Who says he can’t?
Who slaps him down?”
Norquist said that if Becker were confirmed, all that would
need to happen would be for somebody to file a complaint
arguing that the unionization process at a particular business
was unfair, and the union-friendly board could decide in the
person’s favor and set rules for unionization and collective
bargaining along the lines of what is prescribed by EFCA.
UPDATE: The Hill is now
reporting that Brown will in fact be seated tomorrow.
