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Secret Ballot Watch

Predictable

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 14, 2010

Last Friday, President Obama pledged to “keep on trying to stimulate growth and jobs” as long as he is in office. Unfortunately, his actions don’t square with his promise. Just yesterday the president reaffirmed his support for a job-killing card check scheme erroneously named the Employee Free Choice Act. Although the bill has languished under bipartisan opposition in Congress, the administration continues to pursue its controversial labor agenda through back channels.  

The president’s lead man on getting card check on the books without approval by Congress is Craig Becker. President Obama used a recess appointment to install this controversial union lawyer on the board after his nomination ran into bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate. Becker has been open about his belief that the NLRB can impose card check through regulatory fiat, and as an editorial appearing today in The Wall Street Journal describes, Becker and his allies on the board are beginning to do just that.


“As Big Labor has realized it won't get ‘card check’ legislation through Congress, it is turning to its secret weapon inside the Obama Administration—labor lawyer Craig Becker. And as many Senators feared when he was nominated, Mr. Becker is using his position on the National Labor Relations Board to bypass the will of Congress.

“President Obama gave Mr. Becker a recess appointment in March after Senate Democrats refused to confirm him to the NLRB, the agency charged with fairly overseeing union elections. As a top lawyer for the Service Employees International Union, Mr. Becker had suggested that the NLRB has the legal authority to impose card check—which eliminates secret ballots in union elections—without the approval of Congress. And lo, at the end of August the NLRB dropped the bombshell, when, in a 3-2 decision, it decided to revisit its important 2007 Dana Corp. ruling. …

“The Dana ruling is about protecting workers from union harassment. And if card check is as popular as unions claim, labor leaders should have no problem letting workers vote to ratify or reject a card-check process. As NLRB member Peter Schaumber, a Bush appointee, noted in his dissent to the NLRB decision to revisit the case, the Dana ruling has in no way chilled the current card-check process.”

(Editorial, “Back Door Card Check,” Wall Street Journal, 9/14/2010) 


With nearly 15 million Americans searching for work, the last thing our country needs is a proposal that will destroy jobs and undermine workplace freedom. Republicans have a commonsense proposal to protect a worker’s right to a secret ballot and a two-point plan to encourage job creation and get the economy moving again. Isn’t it time the president kept his promise to grow our economy by supporting Republican efforts to protect workers and create jobs?

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