Originally posted at WorkerFreedom.org:
This week, the United States Senate will be considering President Obama’s nomination to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Craig Becker. Mr. Becker has expressed radical views about the relationship between employers, employees and union representation.
Specifically, he shows great disdain for employers’ role in the process of union certification elections, and believes that employers should even be prohibited from exposing criminal conduct by unions during these elections. In fact, it appears Mr. Becker would like to bar employers from most NLRB proceedings saying:
“On these latter issues employers should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practice case, even though Board rulings might indirectly affect their duty to bargain.”
Just as Mr. Becker views employers as obstacles to increased unionization, he similarly views workers ability to democratically choose union representation as problematic:
“Just as U.S. Citizens cannot opt against having a congressman, workers should not be able to choose against having a union as their monopoly-bargaining agent.”
“If confirmed, it seems likely Mr. Becker will change the union election timetable implementing ‘quickie’ or ‘ambush’ elections overnight,” says AWF executive director Brian Johnson. “Becker will use the NLRB to help unions get more card check certifications by ignoring or dismissing the complaints filed by employers and individual workers, giving the unions a much freer hand to use intimidation and coercion to gather signatures – pressuring employers to accept the signatures over actual employee votes.”