It is no surprise that President Barack Obama has nominated a labor union attorney to a position on the National Labor Relations Board. After all, the president and his fellow Democrats rely heavily on campaign support from Big Labor.
But the president should not be shocked that some senators are unwilling to confirm the nominee, Craig Becker, who wants to deny workers a secret-ballot vote on whether to unionize their workplaces.
At issue is the grossly misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act.” It would essentially force employees to sign or not sign unionization cards in front of union activists, rather than let workers make that decision in private, without pressure from either the union or management. The card-check process would allow Big Labor to intimidate workers into voting differently from how they might vote in private. That flies in the face of the cherished American principle of secret ballots.
But union groups are pushing the card-check plan as their membership rolls continue to decline nationwide. In 2009, union membership fell again, down to 12.3 percent of the work force. And for the first time, most union members are now in government jobs. Unions want to increase their dues-paying membership and their political clout, and they see denying secret-ballot union decisions as their best hope to do that.
What makes the NLRB nominee, Mr. Becker, so controversial is not merely that he supports pro-union legislation, but that he thinks the NLRB can impose the law’s provisions even if it is not enacted.