Becker Nomination Should Not Be Academic

by Brad Peck

Last July TheTruthAboutEFCA posted:

The wonderful PerezStern blog has found some internal emails from SEIU and its advisers discussing how to deal with professors who have recently weigh in with concerns about how that union is interfering with another. Here are some interesting notes:

• Referring to academics, Javier Morillo of SEIU 26 wants to respond with a letter that “Shames them just a little bit for signing onto something without knowing all the facts”
• Jo-Ann Mort, a would-be adviser, says of the academic group: “most of these academics really are not worth it-but spamming them sounds like what they deserve!!”
• Michelle Ringette, a frequent flack for SEIU boss Andy Stern, wrote: “I know these aren’t high value targets, but I firmly believe people shouldnot be permitted to do drive bys. They are all getting a letter this am and they all bought spot on our spam list.”

Hmm. This may be worth remembering next time labor leaders trot out supposedly important professors. Labor thinks they don’t know what they’re signing, most really are not worth it, and they aren’t high value targets.

Which brings us to this letter where labor leaders trot out sixty-six professors to demand immediate confirmation of SEIU counsel Craig Becker to head the National Labor Relations Board.

Tsk. Tsk. They must not have done the reading:

Many of the positions taken in his writings are well outside the mainstream and would disrupt years of established precedent and the delicate balance in current labor law.

'Employees' only choice, explained Mr. Becker, should be over which set of union officials get 'exclusive' power to negotiate their wages, benefits, and work rules.

[Becker] wrote that employers should be barred from attending NLRB hearings about elections, and from challenging election results even amid evidence of union misconduct.

Mr. Becker argued for rewriting current union-election rules in favor of labor. And he suggested the NLRB could do this by regulatory fiat, without a vote of Congress.

"Any Senator who supports the private ballot should oppose this nomination"