Free Republic

Unions: Republican senators have warned the president not to appoint Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board while Congress is in recess. But he will — and American workers and consumers will be worse off for it. There's good reason to oppose Becker sitting on the NLRB, the five-member federal agency that administers the National Labor Relations Act governing relations between unions and private-sector employers. It's not so much because Becker is a lawyer for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union and would be the first NLRB member to come straight from the legal staff of organized...

The Democrats can’t afford to let this thing get to the recess without a vote — the risk of another round of angry townhalls is too great — so every last stop will be pulled out over the next week. This is just the beginning.

President Obama's decision to appoint his close political ally, union leader Andrew Stern, to the newly created National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has set off a firestorm of criticism from business and conservative groups who charge he is a political radical who should be investigated for failure to register as a lobbyist. President Obama's decision to appoint his close political ally, union leader Andrew Stern, to the newly created National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has set off a firestorm of criticism from business and conservative groups who charge he is a political radical who should be...

Much of the first 14 months of the Obama administration has been a public "love story" between the White House and the Labor Unions. It seems as if President Obama has been basing many of his decisions on how they help the Union Bosses as opposed to how they help the entire country.... These are just a few ways the President is favoring his friends, the Union leaders over the needs of the Union Rank and file and the American People. The reason for the favorable treatment, the Pension Plans are about to collapse, most of the rank and file...

Union Influence: The White House picks its most frequent visitor to sit on its deficit commission. He believes in big government, in big spending, and that the workers of the world should unite. What could go wrong? Computer security firms have been known to hire the best former hackers because they know best how to stop others like them. But the appointment of Andy Stern, president of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), to a bipartisan commission to come up with ways to deal with the rapidly rising federal budget deficit is like having a serial arsonist organize Fire Prevention...

Commerce: Toyota's leaders are in for nasty star-chamber hearings in Congress, with politicians grandstanding and regulators pointing fingers. It's no way to treat a big employer that contributes so much to our economy. When Toyota first came to the U.S. in the 1950s and took out TV ads in the 1960s, the Japan-based company was ridiculed. How could its dinky little cars compete with the mighty Big Three automakers for the American market? But by the 1970s, word got out that Toyota was making a superior energy-efficient product and it won the public over. That success seems to be why...

Documents obtained by The Daily Caller confirm the White House is seriously considering adopting a series of proposals that would favor unionized companies bidding on federal contracts. The documents acknowledge the proposals are likely to increase the cost of government contracting and the size of the bureaucracy. The proposals, collectively known as “High Road Contracting Policy,” were first reported earlier this month. The basic elements of the policy would give preference to companies bidding on federal contracts that pay their hourly workers a “living wage” and provide health insurance, employer-funded pension plans and paid sick days. Following the report Republicans...

Longtime Democratic strategist Pat Caddell on Wednesday blasted the Obama White House for creating “a world in which there is no dissent,” following his banishment from Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff’s campaign for Senate. Caddell, in a phone interview with The Daily Caller, doubled down on the comments he made in November, when he said public sector employee unions in Colorado used as leverage to get him tossed from the Romanoff campaign. “What I said about Andy Stern and the SEIU? Sure, they’re thugs,” said Caddell, a former adviser to President Jimmy Carter, who until Wednesday had an informal advising role...

Some might say it’s a good thing, others might say the opposite, but there’s no denying that union membership is declining in the United States. Last year, 12.3 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, compared with 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which the federal government compiled comparable data. A greater share of public- than private-sector workers belong to unions. Last year local government workers — like teachers, police officers and firefighters — had the highest rate of public sector membership, at 43.3 percent. The figures show a gender differential. More men (13.3 percent) are...

A federal commission has yet to enact a year-old executive order that President Barack Obama thinks will avoid labor unrest but one that critics say discriminates against non-union companies and non-union workers in federal contracting. The construction industry, one of the hardest hit industries from the economic downturn, is speaking out against enactment of the executive order. While unemployment is 9.7 percent nationwide, it is 18.7 percent in the construction industry. Brett McMahon, vice president of the Miller & Long concrete construction firm in Bethesda, Md., said the company is anxious over what will happen if the executive order is...

The Senate on Tuesday rejected Craig Becker, President Obama’s nominee for the National Labor Relations Board. Becker got 52 votes — but he needed 60 to break a GOP filibuster. Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska even voted no. On the surface, new Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., wasn’t important. But he denied Democrats' ability to break a GOP filibuster, so there was no point in vulnerable senators sticking their necks out

Labor Policy: And you thought card check legislation was dead? That certainly appeared to be the case last spring. But now there's talk of attaching it to a jobs bill. Dirty politics and lousy policy. Card check, known last year as the Employee Free Choice Act, is an attempt to fundamentally change the way unions organize. Under a card check law, a union would be certified if a simple majority of workers signed the cards that were used to gauge their interest in unionization. A follow-up vote through a secret ballot, the traditional method of certifying a union, would not...

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) cast his first major vote today, helping Republicans maintain a filibuster against President Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board. Brown opposed ending debate on the nomination of Craig Becker, a former lawyer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who has received stiff opposition from business groups and Republicans. The final vote was 52-33, falling short of the 60 needed to end debate and move to a final vote. President Obama has blasted Republicans for filibustering nominees like Becker. The vote suggests Brown will stick with his caucus on controversial party-line votes. Many suspect...

The nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board was just defeated on a cloture vote 52-33. Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.), Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.), and Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.) all voted against cloture.

Fox News now reporting that Pres. Obama;s nomination of leftist radical labor union associated Craig Becker has failed in the US senate.

Still looming on the legislative horizon is something deceptively called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 800), the provisions of which will make it easier for union organizers to impose union representation on a group of workers by circumventing the current secret ballot method of deciding for or against union representation with an odious mechanism called “card check.” Secret ballot voting has been a feature in US elections for more than two centuries, and that includes union elections. However, if the EFCA were to become law, the federal government will have tilted the playing field toward labor unions by...

President Obama is losing friends left and right these days. Moderate Dems to his right are getting queasy over just how liberal and profligate some of his policies turn out to be. Ultra-liberals to his left are miffed he isn't even more liberal. ..President Obama still has one unstinting and stalwart comrade: the unions. After decades in inexorable and well-deserved decline, unions are back bigtime in the Obama-nation. It is an unholy union. It’s bad for business, bad for the economy, bad for our country. Worse, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, this alliance could lead to bigger government...

The Obama administration is considering a proposal that would heavily favor government contractors that implement policies designed by organized labor. The “High Road Contracting Policy” would give preference to companies that adopt practices above and beyond existing labor laws. Multiple sources have confirmed the discussions, which are part of the White House’s attempt to spur economic growth through procurement reform and are driven by the Center for American Progress and the Service Employees International Union. The proposal would advantage contractors that provide hourly workers with a “living wage”, health insurance, an employer-funded retirement plan and paid sick days. Contracting officers...

Yesterday, Senate Democrats rushed through a party-line cloture vote on Obama's nominee for Solicitor General, Patricia Smith. Smith got 60 Democratic votes even though a Republican senator produced damning evidence that she lied in Senate testimony regarding her role in a controversial program that unfairly benefited labor unions while she was New York State Labor Commissioner. Today, the Senate is again trying to perform as many favors for Big Labor as it can before newly elected Republican Senator Scott Brown is seated and Democrats lose their supermajority. Senate Democrats are now trying to rush through the nomination of Craig Becker...

Obama Administration Says It Is 'Not Finished With Toyota' By JOSH MITCHELL And NORIHIKO SHIROUZU The Obama administration toughened its stance toward Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday, saying it is still reviewing possible safety defects in the company's vehicles and weighing other actions. "We're not finished with Toyota and are continuing to review possible defects and monitor the implementation of the recalls," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. Another DOT official said the agency is considering a civil penalty against the Japanese auto maker. Mr. LaHood, in his statement, said "while Toyota is taking responsible action now, it...