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The Spectacle Blog
Yesterday, I wrote about the battle over the nomination of union lawyer Craig Becker to serve on the National Labor Relations Board. For years, the labor movement has been pushing for a new “card check” law that would deny workers a secret ballot on unionization, and thus enable labor to rapidly add members through intimidation. While the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) has been stalled in the Senate, President Obama appointed Becker to be the tie-breaking vote on the NLRB. This is particularly significant because Becker has previously argued that the Board could institute EFCA on its own, in the absence of legislative action.
In testimony earlier this week, Becker tried to distance himself from his past writings. “The law is clear that the decision…(of) an alternative route to certification rests with Congress and not the board,” Becker said, according to Dow Jones Newswires, claiming that his writings were “intended to be provocative and to ask fundamental questions in order for scholars and others to re-evaluate.”
But writing in the Huffington Post yesterday, Stewart Acuff, chief of staff for the Utility Workers Union of America, lets the cat out of the bag:
[If] 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 to once again allow workers in America access to one of the most basic freedoms in a democracy—the freedom of speech and assembly and association so that workers can build the collective power to challenge the Financial Elite and Get America Back to Work.
Becker is considered one of the intellectual fathers of EFCA, has already gone on the record endorsing a regulatory approach to enacting it, and is himself a part of the labor movement having been counsel to the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO. There’s every reason to believe that were he confirmed, he would do the bidding of unions and work actively to bypass Congress and implement EFCA “through administrative action.”
Fortunately, with the seating of Scott Brown, Becker’s nomination is now in doubt.
View all comments (9) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/02/04/union-official-discloses-strat
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tj| 2.4.10 @ 3:55PM
Fortunately, with the seating of Scott Brown, Becker's nomination is now in doubt. Thank God!!!
Deborah D | 2.4.10 @ 4:44PM
I'm sick to death of these unelected nincompoops basically making their own laws. That's just another outcome of the "progressive" takeover of the country over the last 100 years. Bypass the laws, bypass the Constitution...just do whatever they want. The Constitution is a "living" document...at least that's what they think.
That's why we've got to take the country back. The executive branch thinks the other two branches of govenment are subservient to them -- that they can break rules and infringe on the other two branch's domaine. Well, Congress, you'd better not let them get away with it.
Oldefarte| 2.4.10 @ 4:56PM
Labor unions are the reason why American businesses cannot compete with foreign ones [and why unionized businesses cannot compete with non-nuionized ones]. The union wage simply includes an extremely excessive premium that goes striaght into the labor union's leaders' pockets; and which causes unionized businesses' products/services to become overpriced. US manufacturers could easily compete with foreign ones if not for this unionized premium within its price structure. Unions are solely to blame for the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries with cheaper [than domestic, unionized] labor. Japan's car manufacturers can make a car for say $50/hour labor costs, whereas Detroit' manufacturers' labor costs are approximately $75-100/hour. Corresponndingly, Japan's manufacturers in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama have much lower wage costs [due to non-unionized workers] than do Detroit's [with unionized workers]. Get rid of the unions in this country and the domestic economy will improve substantially!!!!!
Curtis Rasmussen| 2.4.10 @ 9:03PM
Do you have a reference that lays out the numbers? The place where I work relies heavily on hourly workers and this business is screwed if pseudo card-check gives the union leeches get a foothold.
Yes, I've worked in a union shop before. You could not talk directly to union members, you had to go to the union representative who relayed your message and returned with a response. Ridiculous and very expensive, especially if the issue was complicated.
Franklin| 2.4.10 @ 11:31PM
"On every question of construction, [let us] carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson
Brilliant.
LaborUnionReport | 2.5.10 @ 1:10PM
If Becker doesn't make it through the Senate, Obama still has the ability to seat him through a 'recess apoointment.'
However, if he does, given all of the opposition to Becker, it would undermine what little credibility the Board has and employers would would be appealing NLRB decisions right and left to the circuit courts.