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.”

Chairman Wilma Liebman of the National Labor Relations Board has been drawing more attention to her activities in recent months, with the NLRB’s Office of Public Affairs sending out news releases about case decisions and her views on issues.

The latest is a news release about a speech Liebman gave at Washington University Law School in St. Louis, “NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman discusses state of American labor law.” (Fixed link.) Notable are these paragraphs:

Liebman noted that labor laws have provided access to economic justice at the workplace, contributed to the expansion of the American middle class and allowed labor and business to reach their own solutions in response to changing economic conditions. “Labor law still matters,” she said, although “the collective bargaining system and the legal institutions that support it are under severe stress.”

“Sober public dialogue is sorely needed if we are to figure out how to allow, indeed encourage, business to be flexible and competitive, yet also ensure workers the protections and promise of the law,” Liebman continued. “In other words, how are we to achieve the necessary delicate balance between market freedom and democratic values? What road we take in addressing these issues will depend on what kind of society we want to be.”

Our emphases.

The term “economic justice” is commonly used by those who believe in government-promoted redistribution of wealth. Organized labor favors the term, as you can see by searching the AFL-CIO website. The SEIU issued an entire report dedicated to “Social and Economic Justice” in 2004.

Liebman also sees it as a worthwhile goal to “achieve the necessary delicate balance between market freedom and democratic values,” thereby expressing the political view that the two are at odds and should be balanced. We contend that market freedoms and democratic values reinforce one another.

These are all familiar discussions in the political sphere and in policy disputes. But the NLRB is a quasi-judicial agency, “deciding cases based on formal records and hearings.” Board members perform an appellate function by ruling on disputes between employers and employees, business and organized labor. By weighing in on the side of labor — and the highlighted remarks implicitly do so — Liebman casts doubt on her ability to be a disinterested referee.

Liebman’s efforts for a higher profile are a relatively new phenomenon. Last October, the NLRB issued a news release, “New NLRB Office of Public Affairs to increase public engagement,” announcing a new head of the office, a former newspaper reporter and communications person at the union-supported Economic Policy Institute. Perhaps it’s a case of new people, new energy, new advocacy. I Twitter, therefore I am.

One could also speculate about a behavior common to executive branch agencies and multi-member boards when the balance of power shifts. Liebman has served on the NLRB since 1997, and President Obama designated her chairman when assumed office on Jan. 20, 2009. It’s now a two-member board, with the other member being the Republican, Peter Schaumber. Two new board members are still awaiting Senate confirmation, Mark Pearce, a Democrat, and Brian Hayes, a Republican, and it’s conceivable that the President will still recess appoint Craig Becker, previously blocked in a failed cloture vote. Once they come on board, the President can designate one of them a new chairman, that is, picking his own person. Chairmen have been known to lobby to keep their jobs in such circumstances. But a political PR campaign does damage to the NLRB’s reputation and ability to perform the judicial function it was created for.

President Obama on Thursday announced his intention to nominate Brian Hayes to serve on the National Labor Relations Board, filling the position allocated to the minority political party. Hayes is the Republican Labor Policy Director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), and he has a 25-year career in the private sector as a labor law attorney. A stellar selection, albeit a loss to the Senate HELP Committee and congressional consideration of labor issues.

The President in April had announced his intent to nominate two Democratic (majority) members of the NLRB, the SEIU’s general counsel, Craig Becker, and Buffalo labor lawyer Mark Pearce. Becker in particular is a close ally of the White House, having served on the transition committee and having even drafted one of the White House’s early executive orders on labor issues.

With current Chairman Wilma Liebman and NLRB member Peter Schaumber on board, the President’s nominees will restore the NLRB to its full, five-member status.

We welcome a full board with some trepidation. Organized labor demonized the NLRB throughout the Bush Administration for political purposes, especially to flack for the Employee Free Choice Act. Senate Democrats blocked Bush nominees to the board, and Vice President Joe Biden has gone so far as to label members “black shirts,” a scurrilous term that should be eliminated from the public debate.

With organized labor frustrated by its inability to ram the anti-democratic Employee Free Choice Act through Congress, it’s entirely possible the unions will focus their efforts on NLRB as a more malleable forum, one where the law can be stretched, massaged and “reinterpreted.”

Workforce Management, an online publication, had a good piece recently exploring those possibilities, “NLRB Decisions Could Make Card Check a Reality,” which the bald observation: “There is a possibility that the National Labor Relations Board could rule, if the right case comes along, that a company must recognize a union formed through the card-check process. ”

More likely…

[Precedent] doesn’t stand for much at the NLRB, and its new chair, Democrat Wilma Liebman, may be inclined to bolster card check through adjudication, according to Jim Rowader, vice president and general counsel at Target.

“She’s very open to rule making to make significant changes to labor law,” Rowader says. “It will result in a lot of conflict and litigation all the way up to the Supreme Court.”

Welcome to the NLRB, gentlemen. We respectually recommend that you leave the writing of law to Congress.

UPDATE (4:10 p.m.): The President has now nominated all three. See below:

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