As Big Labor becomes more and more desperate to force unionization on small businesses, they will say and do anything in an effort to achieve that end. That means using backdoor tactics in the Congress and, if that doesn’t work, going outside the legislative process and forcing unions on employers through administration action in the executive branch.
Senate Majority Leader Reid’s staff has already conceded they would jam the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act (EFCA) through the legislative process making deals behind closed doors and silencing dissenting voices. And even that probably wouldn’t be enough to secure passage as Senators understand EFCA would result in higher unemployment and lost jobs.
The Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act would allow Big Labor to eliminate the secret ballot and pressure workers into signing cards in favor of workplace unionization. And that’s not even the most egregious portion of the legislation.
If enacted, EFCA would allow government arbitrators to enter a workplace and mandate contracts on employers and employees alike. The people who created and sustained the business would have zero say in their own wages, hours, or anything else.
It’s been estimated that EFCA would cause 600,000 jobs to be lost in the first year alone. More and more job losses would follow as businesses would close or move overseas. But Big Labor bosses are less concerned about job losses than they are in the potential for increased union membership.
And now that Senator-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts will block their pathway for Senate passage of EFCA, labor bosses are frantically searching for a Plan B, a way to bypass the legislative process and obtain the “payback” they believe they are owed. That vehicle to forced unionization outside of Congress has a name. That name is Craig Becker.
Currently, Becker serves as Associate General Counsel to both the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
Most Americans have probably never heard of Mr. Becker and he may be a perfectly nice human being, but his views on the absolute and autocratic power labor should wield over small businesses is enough to make one shudder.
Becker has written that, “employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees’ election of representatives.” Simply stated, Becker believes small businesses should have no say whatsoever over their own future, while union bosses have complete control.
In Craig Becker’s perfect world, every worker in America would be in a union, whether they choose to be there or not.
Becker is a nominee for one of the three vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). According to its Web site, the NLRB is an “independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers in the private sector.”
As a member of the board, Becker would have significant authority to enact the SEIU and AFL-CIO’s agenda by fiat meaning the executive branch would do via administrative action what they have been unable to get enacted through elected representatives in the legislature who are directly accountable to voters.
And there should be absolutely no doubt what Big Labor’s agenda is… the forced unionization of small businesses so that billions in additional dollars from union member dues can flow into their coffers and they can continue to play kingmaker funneling massive amounts of money to the politicians who do their bidding.
Craig Becker’s nomination is a threat to freedom and must not be allowed to go forward. The Senate will hold a hearing on Becker’s nomination this coming week.
U.S. Senators must understand union bosses are counting on them to install their crony – Craig Becker – into the NLRB to move forward with an anti-business and undemocratic agenda that will greatly diminish our freedoms and result in more Americans looking for work.
Katie Packer is the executive director of the Workforce Fairness Institute (www.workforcefairness.com).
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