The AFL-CIO and other unions are demanding a recess appointment of SEIU attorney Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, decrying the current two-member board for its inability to act.

In an op-ed in The Hill Thursday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sputtered:

It’s an outrage that a decision-making body so important to the basic rights of working people is crippled by vacancies. Because the appointment of board members has been deeply politicized and repeatedly blocked, the NLRB has had just two members for more than two years.

Man, oh, man, are these guys shameless.

Just two years, the AFL-CIO was celebrating its ability to prevent a full quorum on the NLRB, cheering the politicization of the appointment process.

From James Parks, AFL-CIO blog, March 27, 2008, “Workers’ Political Strength Helps Stall NLRB Assault on Rights“:

In recent months, our allies on Capitol Hill joined our campaign for a fair NLRB that does its job to protect workers’ freedom to join a union. Last November, workers across the country protested the ongoing assault on worker rights by the Bush-appointed NLRB, saying until a pro-worker labor board is appointed, the agency should be “closed for renovations.”

Now, it seems, workers have successfully stalled, if not derailed, the NLRB’s assault on workers’ rights until a new president can appoint new board members.

Yay! We shut it down! Yay!

Just shameless…

UPDATE 12:15 p.m.: The ChamberPost also delves into the writings of Becker’s union supporters and identifies the clear agenda behind their call for a recess appointment: He’ll use the NLRB to help preserve the political power and perks of Big Labor: “When it Comes to Craig Becker, Heed the Words of his Supporters.”

Today in The Hill, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka uses hot rhetoric to argue that President Obama should recess-appoint both Craig Becker and Mark Pearce to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during the upcoming Congressional Easter Recess. Trumka omits from his call to action any reference to Brian Hayes, the President’s third – and Republican – nominee.

It’s humorous to see the AFL-CIO calling for a recess appointment in such strong terms when, in 2006, the union’s leader was so adamantly opposed to using a recess appointment to fill a vacant seat at the NLRB. From the press release, citing then AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:

The AFL-CIO has grave concerns about President Bush’s decision to recess-appoint Peter Kirsanow to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), bypassing the U.S. Senate, where his nomination would have been controversial.

In his column today, Trumka continues:

And recess appointments? Please. Bush made nine recess appointments to the NLRB .

Trumka fails to discuss the reason why President Bush needed to make those recess appointments. During the last Congress, the Senate Majority blocked confirmation votes on the President’s nominees for the Board. In fact, the NLRB’s membership dropped to only two Members when the Majority’s Leadership refused to recess the Senate by initiating a series of pro forma sessions. The move prevented the President from using a recess appointment to fill the posts that organized labor is now supposedly so incensed over.

Again, if labor Leaders are really so concerned with the proper functioning of the Board, wouldn’t the most direct course of action be to urge the Senate to confirm the two nominees unanimously cleared by the Senate HELP Committee?

From Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, a statement after the failed cloture vote on the nomination of SEIU and AFL-CIO associate counsel Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board:

It is reprehensible that a minority in the U.S. Senate has blocked an up-or-down vote on Craig Becker, nominated seven months ago by President Obama to serve on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Once again, a Republican-led filibuster has put political interests over the needs of America’s working families. For more than two years, the NLRB has had only two of its five members.  Without a fully staffed NLRB, working families face a major disadvantage in winning justice in the workplace. [Our emphasis]

Trumka’s counting on  short memories to claim the moral and political high ground, but it’s the usual bluster and bunk. History shows that the AFL-CIO’s leadership doesn’t care about process or vacancies, only about getting pro-union members onto the NLRB.

On January 25, 2008, President George W. Bush announced his intent to nominate three members to the National Labor Relations Board: Robert J. Battista, Gerald Morales, and Dennis P. Walsh. Battista, a Republican, had previously been confirmed by the Senate and served through Dec. 16, 2007. Walsh, a Democrat, had served on the NLRB through a recess appointment through Dec. 31, 2007. Morales, a Republican, would have been new to the board. (See NLRB service list.)

None of these three candidates were given a confirmation vote by the U.S. Senate, leaving just two members on the board. One of the most vociferous voices against filling those vacancies? The AFL-CIO. From then President John Sweeney, reviling two of the nominees in a Jan. 28, 2008, news release:

The Bush Administration’s bury-bad-news-on-a-Friday-afternoon nominations to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are a blatant attempt to keep a Labor board with an unbalanced, anti-worker bias, and they would be poisonous to America’s working families.

Chairman Robert Battista has been Bush’s point man for his war on workers. President Bush’s renomination of Battista for another 5-year term is a clear effort to stack the deck in favor of Big Business over working people, as is his nomination of Gerald Morales, an attorney who has spent his professional career representing management and has no history defending workers’ rights.

So Sweeney and the AFL-CIO were perfectly happy with NLRB vacancies two years ago, it’s just the appointees they didn’t like (and maligned).

In 2008, the recess appointments of Bush’s three nominees were prevented by the Senate Majority’s decision to hold regular pro forma sessions, thereby not going into recess, in the process ensuring the continuation of the vacancies. The AFL-CIO did not complain about the vacancies then. And today? Trumka: “We support President Obama’s expressed willingness to make recess appointments of critical posts in the federal government if that’s what it takes to get around minority delay and obstruction.”

From The San Francisco Chronicle, a notebook column by Andrew S. Ross anticipating “compromise” on the Employee Free Choice Act, “Union-organizing bill is getting revised“:

East Bay Rep. George Miller has been leading the charge in the House, but his people are well aware of the situation. “We always assumed we would have to modify it,” said a member of Miller’s education and labor committee staff.

I’m told that conversations with staffers from Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin‘s office, which is doing the heavy lifting on the Senate side, are focusing primarily on the card check provision. As written, it would allow workers to bypass the traditional secret ballot and form a union if more than 50 percent sign cards. One compromise being bruited: ensuring a worker’s right to opt for a secret ballot election, rather than simply checking “yes” on a card.

This appears to be a reference to the “dual card” approach that some of the more aggressive labor activists are casting to see if anyone bites. But it does nothing to reduce the loss of privacy and intimidation concerns that make “card check” unacceptable. Instead of union arm twisting around the message of, “Sign this card,” the message becomes, “Check here. Now sign this card.”

That’s not a compromise.

UPDATE (11:40 a.m.): The Washington Post sought comments from various people involved with the Employee Free Choice Act debate in a Sunday article, “Topic A.” The AFL-CIO’s John Sweeney wasted no time in getting to class warfare: “Our nation stands ready to emerge from the modern-day era of the Robber Baron. For three decades, we’ve valued corporate profit over people and CEO pay over people’s pocketbooks.” Yeah, just call him Mr. Compromise.

From TPMDC, a statement from John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO:

Today’s announcement by Sen. Specter – a sponsor of the original Employee Free Choice Act who voted for cloture in 2007 – is frankly a disappointment and a rebuke to working people, to his own constituents in Pennsylvania and working families around the country.The fact is the Employee Free Choice Act has more support than ever — large majorities in both houses of Congress, the President and Vice President, 73 percent of the public. We will continue to work with Democrats and a number of Republicans to create commonsense solutions to the decades of corporate power.

We do not plan to let a hardball campaign from Big Business derail the Employee Free Choice Act or the dreams of workers.

There are deep flaws in our labor laws, as Sen. Specter acknowledged today. The freedom to join together and bargain with employers for fair wages and better benefits is critical to rebuilding our middle class – and now is exactly the time to do it, as we begin to revive our economy in a way that works for everyone. In the coming weeks, we will be escalating our campaign and finding the best ways forward to a balanced, strong economy.

The “hardball campaign from Big Business” that Sweeney refers to involves tens of thousands of employers AND employees exercising their First Amendment rights, objecting to a terrible idea. It’s fundamentally not different than organized labor’s campaign, really, save that the economic and democratic arguments are on our side. And we don’t have to deprive people of the secret ballot to make our case.

This morning the USA Today came out in strong opposition to Big Labor’s plans to effectively eliminate secret ballots for labor union elections. USA Today described in detail what the Employee Free Choice Act, and explained how this misguided legislation would undermine our country’s democratic principles. This piece provided a comprehensive overview of all aspects of the bill, including how federal bureaucrats could impose binding terms for first labor contracts.

To be fair, they point out that Labor leaders often argue that the card check bill wouldn’t prohibit private balloting. Yes- however accurate this point may be it is misleading. They realize that under a card check system: “union organizers would have no reason to seek an election if they had union cards signed by more than 50% of workers.”

As a counter to this opinion piece, the AFL-CIO’s President John Sweeney  was allowed to provide an ‘opposing view’. Sweeney writes that a card check system allows employees to make their choice of union representation without intimidation. Unfortunately, by forcing employees to make their decision known to co-workers, union organizers and even their supervisors they become susceptible to many forms of potential coercion. Surprisingly I agree with John Sweeney when he says “U.S. workers deserve a free, fair choice of whether to improve their lives and futures through unions.” HOWEVER, the only way to secure free and fair choice in deciding whether to join a union, is through private ballot elections.