The Hill: Business groups launch blitz against labor board nominee

[Omaha Steve]

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/78999-business-groups-launch-blitz-against-labor-board-nominee

By Michael O'Brien - 02/01/10 10:18 AM ET

A coalition of business groups are working to mount an all-out blitz against a key nominee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Several groups have banded together to push senators to vote against the nomination of Craig Becker, a labor lawyer, to join the NLRB.

The Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI), National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other groups have begun efforts tot mobilize supporters against Becker by sending out a flurry of email petitions and notices on the nomination.

The business groups say that, if confirmed, Becker and the rest of the NLRB could enact reforms similar to those in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card check") bill before Congress, which would revamp labor organizing laws.

FULL story at link.

[rfranklin]

1. "The Workforce Fairness Institute"--more Orwellian naming...

Union bill creates jobs—for GOP ops
Ben Smith // Politico
March 9, 2009
Danny Diaz’s morning e-mails are back.

Diaz, until last month the relentless communications director for the Republican National Committee and reliable source of jabs at Democrats, now sends out a new “Morning Roundup” of attacks on the Employee Free Choice Act.

With Democrats running the show, EFCA, union-backed legislation that would make it easier for unions to organize workers, has become the scourge of the business community. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce calls it “potentially disastrous,” and a top official there, Randel Johnson, describes the battle over it as “Armageddon.”

Both business and labor are dispatching hordes of supporters to lobby Congress this week. And already, the battle has provided a welcome stimulus to a seriously depressed industry: Republican political operatives.

“There are groups springing up almost every week,” said Rhonda Betz of Navigators Global, a consulting firm that started the first anti-EFCA group out of the gate, Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, in 2006. “Some of it is a reflection of them identifying this as a fundraising opportunity, and some of it is a reflection of real stuff going on.”



....Another business-backed group, the Workforce Fairness Institute (not to be confused with the Workforce Freedom Initiative), employs Former Bush ad man Mark McKinnon, former White House Political Director Sara Taylor, Mitt Romney aides Barbara Comstock and Katie Packer, powerhouse conservative PR firm CRC, GOP Web gurus Patrick Ruffini, Mindy Finn and Patrick Hynes and former RNC Communications Director Diaz.