Patterico's Pontifications

3/27/2010

Obama Makes Recess Appointments, Including Craig Becker

Filed under: Government,Obama,Politics — DRJ @ 3:41 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The White House announced 15 recess appointments to be made while the Senate is on its Easter vacation:

“I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government,” Obama said in a statement.

The 15 appointees to boards and agencies include the contentious choice of union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Republicans had blocked his nomination on grounds he would bring a radical pro-union agenda to the job, and they called on Obama not to appoint Becker over the recess.
***
The White House dropped the news in a press release on a quiet Saturday, with Obama at Camp David and lawmakers home in their districts.

The recess appointments mean the 15 people could serve in their jobs through the end of 2011, when the next Senate finishes its term. A recess appointment ends at the completion of the next Senate session or when a person is nominated and confirmed to the job, whichever comes first.”

Becker was counsel to both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO and is a proponent of card check, but his views are extreme even among liberals:

“For example, in a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article he explained that “traditional” democracy should not apply in union elections. He believes that employers should be barred from attending NLRB hearings regarding elections, and from challenging election results even when there are allegations of union misconduct. He wrote: “The law leaves the Board discretion to determine the appropriate parties to hearings in representation cases. It should exercise this discretion by specifying that the only parties to both pre- and post-election hearings are employees and the unions seeking to represent them.”

Becker also believes that union elections should be removed from the work site and held on “neutral grounds,” or via mail ballots. Employers should also be barred from “placing observers at the polls to challenge ballots.”

Furthermore, Becker favors a new “body of campaign rules” that would severely limit the ability of employers to argue against unionization. Becker wrote that any “captive audience” meeting a company holds in which it states its anti-union positions ought to be grounds for overturning an election. He also contends that a company that distributes anti-union material should be forced to allow union access to its private property to distribute pro-union material.

And Becker goes even further — he’s even suggested that unions should be mandatory, whether employees want them or not. As reported by the National Right to Work newsletter, Becker stated, “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.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also expressed concerns in a July 2009 letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions when Becker was nominated. The letter questions Becker’s neutrality and ability to fairly administer and enforce labor laws given his radical beliefs on employer rights and how labor law changes can be implemented.

The AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff explained how labor plans to get card check:

“We are very close to the 60 votes we need. It 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.”

After health care, we know Obama is a partisan who supports a radical agenda for America. Craig Becker is part of that agenda and that doesn’t bode well for businesses.

— DRJ

7 Responses to “Obama Makes Recess Appointments, Including Craig Becker”

  1. we are going to need more tar & feathers…..

    if not more pikes.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  2. BTW: somebody correct me if i’m wrong, but wasn’t this sort of thing an insult to liberty and democracy, etc, etc. when Bush did it?

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  3. The silver lining in this case is that these appointments only last until the end of this Congress. I suspect that Obama knows the Democrats will not be the majority next year and, since the Senate is the body approving nominations, it shows he is pessimistic about the Senate.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  4. When even chief justice roberts is wondering why you’re not using a recess appointment…

    imdw (404fc5)

  5. Becker is a great argument for repealing the Wagner Act. If the republicans should control congress again that and repealing Davis-Bacon should be a top priority.

    cubanbob (409ac2)

  6. Just as recess appointments by the President are Constitutional, I would hope that the next Congress will choose not to fund Becker’s National Labor Relations Board while Becker remains part of it …

    Alasdair (205079)

  7. FYI

    redc1c4 (fb8750)


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