National Labor Relations Board member Craig Becker, appointed by President Obama and a former counsel for the SEIU, is ruling on cases that come before the board involving his former employer .
Despite being asked to recuse himself numerous times, Becker continues to make sure that any serious challenges to the authority of of the SEIU are squashed. This example is of a group of nurses who refused to go on strike, resigned from the union, and were threatened by the union with dire consequences if they didn't toe the line. Becker, part of the three judge panel that heard the pleading, was asked to recuse himself:Becker refused to do so. In fact, he was part of a three-member panel that reviewed the SEIU/Pomona Valley case, and he has made it clear that he intends to continue involving himself in cases involving his former employer.
"There are 13 or 14 cases in which we've sought recusal for Craig Becker," says Patrick Semmens, legal information director for the National Right to Work Foundation (NRWF), which represented Badertscher. Becker has been highly critical of the foundation, Semmens says, casting aspersions upon its mission and good faith. "But the main thing in this case is the SEIU connection. In other cases, he'd written briefs on the issues in question in the course of litigation in his role at the SEIU."
So far, Becker has accommodated the NRWF in exactly one case in which his recusal was sought. "In that case, Becker had signed the legal brief and was the counsel of record," Semmens says. "If you can't recuse yourself from that . . . well, then when would you?"
In the Pomona Valley case, Becker published an opinion in which he concluded that he was not obliged to recuse himself because, even though he had been general counsel for the SEIU, he had not, in the past two years, represented the local chapter in question. The distinction between the national SEIU and the locals is a questionable one.
According to the administration's lights, Becker can't recuse himself because that would defeat the purpose of his being there; to look out for the interests of Obama's favorite union and tilt the board decisively in Big Labor's favor.
Running the government like a banana republic is easy if you have the right people. Becker certainly fills the bill; dishonorable, a crony of powerful Democrats, and a total lack of sensitivity to the gravity and requirements of his office.
Hat Tip: Ed Lasky
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