Senate Showdown: Business vs. Labor

A Senate committee today approved the nomination of Craig Becker to serve on the National Labor Relations Board, setting the stage for a business versus labor showdown in the full Senate.

Business groups oppose Becker’s nomination, contending the union attorney and law professor would try to restrict the rights of employers in labor disputes. Some even fear Becker would lead the NLRB to accomplish by regulation what labor so far has failed to achieve through legislation: enabling unions to organize a workplace simply by getting a majority of workers to sign cards saying they want to be represented. An election would not be necessary.

The Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved Becker’s nomination on a party-line 13-10 vote today.

Becker could face trouble getting confirmed by the Senate, however. The pending vote on his nomination is one reason why Scott Brown, the Massachusetts Republican who won a special election for the late Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat, asked to be seated today instead of next Thursday as originally scheduled.

Brown gives Republicans 41 votes in the Senate, denying Democrats the 60 votes needed to block a filibuster. Republicans are expected to use this procedural tactic to prevent the Senate from voting on Becker’s nomination.

Before Brown was seated, the Senate voted 60-37 today to confirm Patricia Smith as solicitor for the Labor Department, the agency’s top enforcement post. President Barack Obama nominated Smith last April, but she had been blocked by Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming, who accused the New York commissioner of labor of making “factually inaccurate” statements about a state program that enlisted unions and community organizations to report violations of wage-and-hour laws by businesses.

Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the union-backed Economic Policy Institute, said Smith’s confirmation was overdue.

“For the last decade, lax labor-law enforcement has made workers far more susceptible to abuses like unpaid overtime and wage theft, unsafe working conditions, and workplace discrimination,” Eisenbrey said. “We can now look forward to a new chapter where the rights of workers are respected and vigorously enforced.”

HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin of Iowa also praised Smith’s confirmation, and said he hopes Republicans won’t use “extraordinary procedural tactics” to block Becker.

Harkin said the business community’s fears about Becker’s plans to implement the Employee Free Choice Act through regulation are unfounded.

“He has clearly and consistently explained, on numerous occasions, that all three major reforms proposed in EFCA—card check, binding arbitration for first contracts, and treble back pay for illegally fired workers—cannot be accomplished without a change in the statute,” Harkin said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, however, remains opposed to Becker’s confirmation, even though it acknowledges the nominee addressed some of its concerns at a HELP Committee hearing yesterday.

“Too many concerns remain for employers to be comfortable with this nomination,” said Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s chief lobbyist. “Among those concerns are the extent to which Mr. Becker would restrictively interpret employers’ free-speech rights and the extent to which he would seek to expand the use of intermittent strikes and other forms of work stoppages that disrupt the right of employers to maintain operations during labor disputes.”

The business community is right to be concerned about Becker and Obama’s other pro-labor nominees. But it was a secret-ballot election—which is sacred to businesses when it comes to unionization efforts—that put Obama into office. So maybe business groups should respect the result of that election and let the president put the people he wants into important government positions, as long as they are qualified.

They can always try to undo the damage at the next election.