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Recuse Thyself, Mr. Becker…

This is rich, too rich…

On the SEIU’s Craig “Demon Pass” Becker’s potential conflicts of interest, the battle is beginning.

From the Wall Street Journal:

No sooner did President Barack Obama exercise his recess-appointment powers to put labor lawyer Craig Becker into a seat at the National Labor Relations Board than a group that has challenged unions said it will ask Becker to recuse himself from 12 pending cases before the board.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation said Becker, who has served as counsel for the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, should not hear cases in which the foundation is providing legal aid to workers, because Becker directly opposed the group while serving as counsel for the SEIU and because his prior writings demonstrate a bias against the group.

“We just don’t think he’s going to be able to impartially adjudicate cases involving the Foundation’s attorneys,” said Nick Cote, a spokesman for the group. He cited several writings, including a 2005 article that Becker co-wrote in the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law in which the foundation is referred to as “funded by the most anti-union fringe of the employer community.” [Emphasis added.]

Given that Becker worked for the SEIU and the AFL-CIO (a federation that consists of 57-individual unions), as well as the fact that Becker is the only known NLRB member to have gone straight from union hack advocate to the NLRB, we are hard-pressed to see where there is not a conflict of interest involving any case that has one of his union bosses as a party.

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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Cross-posted.

* Image Credit: Labor Pains

COMMENTS

  • http://www.dcworksforus.com Kenny Solomon

    Between Becker ‘The Wrecker’ and Cass “Nudge” Sunstein, I give it a few weeks before some little known existing regulation on companies doing business with any corporation that received ‘bailout money’ is tweaked into an exec. order mandating every single working person in a non-management or ownership position with those businesses throughout America join a labor union.

    Go ahead….. laugh.

    If I can think about it, you damn well know they’ve got somebody looking for anything…….. or maybe they already have it in place with one sentence in that bill over there, another sentence in some other bill over here and the zinger in an exec order pre-written and ready to sign.

    Oh, I forgot…….. It can’t happen here.

    • http://www.laborunionreport.comandhttp://www.laborunionreport.blogspot.com LaborUnionReport

      Supervisors may soon be unionizable under NLRB decision making or, if not that, then the R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Act (if it gets passed).

      Obama’s High Road is a start…

      http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Morning-Must-Reads—-Dr-Strangelove-does-health-care–85473397.html

      The Service Contract Act already gets you half way there…

      Davis Bacon…yep…

      Green Jobs?…Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm.

      Right to Work laws? Fughedaboudit! That’s one sentence in the LMRA (Taft-Hartley Amendments) that can be removed in Congress (they introduced it in 2008, but it didn’t go anywhere).

      • http://www.dcworksforus.com Kenny Solomon

        Like even one person in the current administration even remotely cares about a conflict of interest.

        Between these recess appointed freaks of nature and the Trinity University (Texas) insanity, I gotta back away from the computer for a few minutes, or I’ll end up really launching.

        Back in about 30.