So argues Katie Packer, executive director of the Workforce Fairness Institute, in an op-ed in today’s Washington Times, “True intentions exposed,” revealing the not-so-secret agenda of Andy Stern of the SEIU and the AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka in pushing the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. The Senate last week failed to invoke cloture on Becker’s nomination by a bipartisan, 52-33 vote.

Just days ago, Mr. Trumka wrote, “The NLRB’s job is to protect workers’ rights - but for more than two years it has been functioning with only two members instead of the five it should have. Working people need an NLRB that can enforce the National Labor Relations Act - not one hobbled by vacancies. … These next few weeks will be crucial in building support for a fully functional NLRB.”

So, the Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) took Mr. Trumka at his word and called on the U.S. Senate to move expeditiously on the other outstanding nominations to the NLRB, namely Democrat Mark Pearce and Republican Brian Hayes. This would give the NLRB the quorum it needs to do its job.

In related dissections of Big Labor’s rhetoric,  LaborPains.org reads a recent opinion column in Politico by William Forbath, professor of law and history at the University of Texas and author of Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement. What’s Forbath’s real goal in supporting the nomination of Becker to the NLRB?

From Politico:

“The Becker nomination offers President Barack Obama a more important opportunity, what he likes to call a teachable moment. […]

But unions are on the verge of vanishing. If the Democrats won’t even go this far to halt the battering unions have been taking, then Democrats and the nation will be the losers. For soon, we won’t have any institutional player to do the heavy lifting, to provide the serious money the Democrats need to campaign for job creation, health care reform and financial regulation. McCain and company have demonized Becker simply because he’s a union lawyer. Obama should stand up to them.

Save Big Labor and your party allies, Mr. President! Make a recess appointment of Craig Becker!

Thanks to the Center for Union Facts for slogging through Forbath’s column. We lost interest with his tired invocation of “the big lie” and “teachable moments.” Is that what passes for argument at the University of Texas?

Finally, we draw your attention to yesterday’s post here at Shopfloor.org on the political PR campaign by the current chairman, Wilma Liebman, undermining the board’s quasi-judicial responsibilities. As the Truth About EFCA blog headlined its own post, “Even Without Becker, Politicizing The NLRB.”

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.”

Over the weekend Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, made several media appearances to stress that big labor bosses remain steadfast in their commitment to pushing the jobs-killing Employee Free Choice Act in Congress, the public’s steadfast opposition notwithstanding.

On Bill Moyers Journal, Trumka stated that that the unions have 59 votes lined up in the Senate right now to pass the bill. It’s a strange count, much higher than ours. Does this statement from Mr. Trumka mean that Senator Blanche Lincoln has changed her mind and will vote for the bill? Will Sens. Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson do the same? We think that it’s wishful thinking from desperate labor leaders.

A comment made by Mr. Trumka during the “Last Word “ with CNN’s John King also seems intentionally vague. In the interview he said, “I think we’ll get health care done and I think we’ll get labor law reform done before the year’s up.” Done how? With Congressional action unlikely on the Employee Free Choice Act, perhaps he means enacting its provisions through the National Labor Relations Board. That’s why some in the U.S. are rushing through the nomination of AFL-CIO associate counsel Craig Becker to the NLRB, so the board’s new majority can indeed get “labor law reform done before the year’s up.”

The NAM is working with other employer groups to urge the Senate to reject the controversial nomination of Craig Becker to the NLRB. This morning a letter was sent to the Senate from 23 associations taking the rare step of opposing his nomination.

We’re still puzzling this one out — AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka explaining why every workplace should be unionized. From the Q&A after his speech Monday at the National Press Club.

First of all, I think every workshop ought to have a union [applause], because I believe better decisions are made when you sit down at a table as equal. And I’ll give you a classic example of that.

When my son was 5 years old, he would come up to me and say, “Dad. I want to do this.” And I’d say “No.” That’s it. It was “No.”

He didn’t have any kind of leverage or any kind of bargaining power with me. He couldn’t go to any kind of higher authority. It was “No.” He had no bargaining power.

Well then, two minutes later my wife comes up, and my wife says, “I want to get a new car,” and I’d say, “Let’s sit down and talk about this.” I mean, it was a whole different process, because we came to the table with different leverage. She and I came with, well, almost the same bargaining power – I probably was still on the short end of that one – but he had no bargaining power.

What?

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, gave a luncheon speech at the National Press Club on Monday mostly offering the standard class warfare interpretation of the economy and politics. Amid the half-newsy remarks about health care, excise taxes, and the electoral plans for labor, Trumka also repeated his pitch for the union’s “Five Point Plan for Jobs.” From the prepared text:

The AFL-CIO’s five-point program will create more than 4 million jobs—extending unemployment benefits, including COBRA; expanding federal infrastructure and green jobs investments; dramatically increasing federal aid to state and local governments facing fiscal disaster; direct job creation where feasible; and finally, direct lending of TARP money to small and medium sized businesses that can’t get credit because of the financial crisis.

Though rarely noted outside of union speeches and blog posts, this plan may eventually be seen as an important transition in labor history, representing the moment when even old line unions like the AFL-CIO came to base their entire existence on government. Every single point in that program depends on federal government action and spending.

The same dependency is also manifested in labor’s allegiance to the Employee Free Choice Act: Having sunk to representing less than 8 percent of the private sector, organized labor now wants to use the power of the federal government to force workers into union membership against their wills. In the Q&A period, Trumka claimed, “I think you’ll see the Employee Free Choice Act pass in the first quarter of 2010, you’ll see it have some real effect, we will start creating and making good jobs in this country again.”

If the government lets us.

The AFL-CIO blog is reporting on the union-funded Economic Policy Institute’s “Spotlight on the Jobs Crisis” panel discussion this morning, a gathering of “progressive” leaders. Speakers are: Richard L. Trumka, AFL-CIO president; Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Community Change; Wade Henderson, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR); Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; EPI President Lawrence Mishel; andJanet Murguía, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council of La Raza.

Trumka’s jobs agenda appears to be an agenda for government jobs:

Trumka is proposing five steps to help end the nation’s ongoing jobs crisis. In the face of a 10 percent official unemployment rate and millions more underemployed or struggling with long-term unemployment, Trumka says, we need immediate action to put people back to work. The five key steps are:

1. Extend the lifeline for jobless workers.

2. Rebuild America’s schools, roads and energy systems.

3. Increase aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services

4. Fund jobs in our communities.

5. Put TARP funds to work for Main Street.

Too general to critique, and there could well be good projects amid the government spending — infrastructure, for example. But the Workforce Fairness Institute notes that the AFL-CIO’s oft-stated priority is the Employee Free Choice, the forced unionization “card check” legislation. WFI issued a statement this morning from its executive director, Katie Packer:

In a comedic yet troubling display of hypocrisy, Richard Trumka will announce this morning “bold, quick action to put people back to work.”  And his solution? A bill that would kill 600,000 jobs in the first year alone.  Trumka’s solution to double-digit, historic unemployment is support for job-killing legislation that will only put more people out of work and force our nation’s top job producers – small businesses – to close their doors.  Union bosses have demonstrated a willingness to distort the truth in order to get the “payback” they believe they are owed in the form of the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act.  The notion that this legislation would do anything but further damage our economy is complete nonsense.

UPDATE (11:10): Video of Trumka’s remarks is here. He does indeed make a quick reference to the Employee Free Choice Act, urging its passage. The interesting thrust of the AFL-CIO program is that it relies entirely on the government. The private sector barely enters into his discussion, except as a recipient of government funds.

As expected there was a flurry of union activity throughout the weekend, where many aspects of organized labor’s legislative priorities were discussed. As this blog noted, the President headed to an AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic in Cincinnati to stump for health care. However, while at the picnic, he gave a fleeting reference to big labor’s highest legislative priority: the job-killing Employee Free Choice Act.

Vice President Biden and Labor Secretary Solis offered support for the legislation at separate events in Pittsburgh and Chicago respectively.

Labor Day pronouncements aside, it’s been a rough year for the labor movement. According to a recent Gallup poll less than half of Americans approve of today’s labor movement. Labor has failed to convince enough Senators to pass their job-killing legislative brass-ring – card check legislation. A column in the Washington Post recently provided an overview of these setbacks. However, this particular piece came from the perspective that our current labor law system is unbalanced – a point that we have disputed and corrected numerous times on this blog.

It appears that organized labor is increasingly frustrated with this lack of action on card check, and they’re failing to speak with a unified voice, according to New York Times articles over the weekend. One piece quotes the likely new head of the AFL-CIO as saying that the President gets a “gets an A for effort, and an incomplete for results.” Despite spending $450 million dollars to elect the current administration, union bosses are facing a considerable amount of friction over the lack of progress. These concerns will likely be addressed when the President speaks at the AFL-CIO’s annual convention in Pittsburgh next week.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell continued to express his strong opposition to the legislation as a step in the wrong direction and merely an attempt for unions bolster their membership. He also reiterated that every Senate Republican is firm in their opposition to the EFCA.

The NAM highlighted the disconnect between the goals of union bosses and the needs of economy to recover in our annual Labor Day Report. Additionally, we’ve continued to call on members of the Senate to oppose the card check bill in any form with a campaign lead by our Labor Policy Institute in advance of the Labor Day weekend.

Bret Jacobson provides a good wrap up of other noteworthy pieces related to the EFCA at The Truth About EFCA blog.

Earlier this week, the soon-to-be president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, vowed retaliation against members of Congress who failed to adequately support labor’s cause, including passage of the anti-democratic Employee Free Choice Act. A labor movement that “punishes its enemies” was his term.

Now, Trumka is attacking the reputation of the left-wing standard bearer and labor ally, George McGovern.

From US News:

Ever since 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern hit the Employee Free Choice Act, or card check, in an ad earlier this year, Big Labor has been fuming. This week, it let off some steam. In a breakfast media roundtable, the likely new president of the AFL-CIO struck back. Richard Trumka, who’s expected to be elected next week to replace outgoing boss John Sweeney, slammed McGovern as a foe of workers. “You know poor George got paid to do an ad. Now he ran as an antiwar candidate, and there have been three or four wars since he left the playing field that he had nothing to say about. And then he comes back on the playing field to make war against the workers. We found that very ironic,” Trumka said to some gasps in the room of reporters.

“Make war against the workers…” Really ugly rhetoric, especially when you consider McGovern’s heroism in a real war, WWII.

Leadership sets a tone for an entire organization, so you can imagine the message Trumka is sending to organizers approaching recalcitrant employees, reluctant to join a union.

As noted yesterday, the incoming AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka, is free with his threats. In prepared remarks for delivery to the left-leaning Center for American Progress, Trumka said, “Today, more than ever, we need to be a labor movement that stands by our friends, punishes its enemies, and challenges those who, well, can’t seem to decide which side they’re on.”

So what reception will the AFL-CIO offer when President Obama addresses its national convention in Pittsburgh on September 15? After all, the President has done no heavy lifting on behalf of organized labor’s top priority, the undemocratic and unpopular Employee Free Choice Act.

Well, in politics you don’t politically threaten — even obliquely — the President when you’ve invited him to address your national convention. And for all the disappointment over EFCA, the labor bosses have much to happy about. For example:

• Secretary Hilda Solis has just told the unions that they will face no enforcement consequences for failing to file the financial disclosure records required by law. Transparency!
• Today, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is in Gary, Ind., to give the Administration’s support to the Blue-Green Alliance, a confederacy of union and environmentalist groups that seek to funnel government money to unionized clean-energy projects.
• And OMB recently issued a memorandum to agencies instructing them to use Project Labor Agreements for federal projects over $25 million in cost. PLAs push construction projects toward unionized contractors, significantly increasing the costs of projects paid for by taxpayers. The OMB’s memo reinforced one of President Obama’s first actions, the Feb. 6 signing of an executive order encouraging the use of PLAs. Associated Builders and Contractors have an informative website on the issue, TheTruthAboutPLAs.com.

So lots to be happy about if you’re a Big Labor Boss, and we imagine the Pittsburgh welcome will be a warm one for President Obama. The threats? Trumka will just issue them to members of Congress.

P.S. The Truth About EFCA blog makes the obvious and necessary point about Trumka’s bullying: “If union officials will talk this openly about punishing people who disagree with them, why would we want to expose workers to intimidation by denying them a secret ballot vote when deciding whether to join a union?”

The incoming AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka, sure seems to enjoy throwing the veiled and not-so-veiled threats around.

Today, more than ever, we need to be a labor movement that stands by our friends, punishes its enemies, and challenges those who, well, can’t seem to decide which side they’re on.

He made those remarks today at an appearance at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. The New York Times has the story.

It’s a strange strategy, this power posturing. Reverse-TR, if you will.