Obama Backs SEIU’s Becker, Labor Union Shorts & EFCA Update

A hearty Happy New Year to you!

Besides some breaking news and an EFCA update, we offer you our first 2010 edition of Labor Union Shorts and, as we know your inboxes were filled over the holidays, we'll keep as fairly brief for you (pun intended).

First, this…

BREAKING: Becker to be Re-Nominated…

President Obama's radical union nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker (who is Assistant General Counsel to both the AFL-CIO and the SEIU) had his nomination rejected by the Senate only a week ago. However, liberal blogs Huffington Post and FireDogLake are reporting that the President is frustrated with a lack of progress on his nominations and may be renominating Becker again.

According to FireDogLake:

Now, in all likelihood, McCain will again slap a hold on Becker; the White House will then have a couple options. It can negotiate with McCain for something else he wants; the HELP committee can hold a full hearing on Becker like McCain wants; Harry Reid can force a vote and get 60 senators to vote for Becker, which will end up being a proxy fight over the Employee Free Choice Act; or McCain’s icy heart will melt and allow Becker to go through.

In either case, as Becker’s nomination goes, so do the other 2 NLRB nominees, who must be voted on in a package with Becker. Meanwhile, the 2-member NLRB will continue to make uncontroversial rulings on pending cases that may yet be ruled invalid by the Supreme Court.

Read more from HuffPo here

The EFCA Echo Chamber:

You may have noticed lately that there's a lot of chatter throughout the blogosphere about the likelihood of Democrats attempting to muscle the job-destroying and hallucinogenically-named Employee Free FORCED Choice Act.

Although much of the chatter surrounding EFCA's timing is purely conjecture at this point, the chances are the chatter is correct.

Union bosses know that their days to get anything like EFCA done in DC are numbered. In fact, there are only ten months and three weeks left before Americans head to polls to either rebuke and repudiate the leftward lean of Washington or give the Democrats an endorsement of their running the country further into the ground. And, so far, it looks like the Democrats will be losing their 60-seat supermajority in the Senate as top Democrats run for the exits.

There's still hope (albeit slim) that a busy legislative schedule may impede EFCA.

The 2010 legislative calendar is still unclear with the nationalization of America's health care going into secret negotiations between House and Senate Democrats despite President Obama's repeated promises of airing the negotiations on C-SPAN. However, while the health care debate still goes on, it's being reported that the President is also preparing a push for amnesty for illegals, aka Immigration Reform. That debate will surely warm up the capital like a donkey's a** after eating hot plate of frijoles! [Editor's note: If you thought you were subscribing to a PC post, we apologize for any misgivings.]

This begs the question: What comes first? EFCA?...Or making sure that 12 million illegal immigrants can become health-insured Democrat voters before November?

LUR's Labor Shorts: Exposing Union Bosses One Skid Mark at a Time

For previous Labor Shorts, go here.

• Fugheddaboutit! They Don't Call it the Garbage Garden State For Nuttin!: Reputed Mobster Pleads Guilty To Racketeering Charge. "A high-ranking soldier in the Gambino Crime Family pleaded guilty yesterday to a federal charge of racketeering conspiracy for his role in running an enterprise that engaged in illegal gambling, extortion, fraud schemes and labor racketeering…"
• BFF? A San Francisco slammer and some new friends awaited Uber-Union Boss Richie Trumka on Tuesday as the newly-anointed AFL-CIO kingpin, along with dozens of others, got themsleves arrested during an allegedly illegal sit-in in the lobby of the San Francisco Hilton.
• Union of Ailing Workplaces… A New York Times expose on one formerly-militant, now newly humbled, UAW local should remove all doubt as to what helped drive Government Motors (…er, GM…) into bankruptcy. [Here's a hint: Some people would call it 'sabotage.']
• Is He or Isn't He?...Why not ask Andy? Nearly two months after a request to the U.S. Attoney to investigate whether SEIU's lavender-lapeled lord of labor Andy Stern is illegally lobbying, CNN finally did a partial puff piece on the months-old story…and asked Andy Stern if he is a lobbyist. [See more here.]
• Union Bullsh*t Watch is Back! Glass-Housed Teamsters Ticked Over "Anti-Union" Flyers As the adage goes: He who lives in a glass house should not throw rocks.
• Carpenters Build Glass Houses Too? With Apparently No Union to Save Them, Chicago's Carpenters' Union Lays Off Dozens of Organizers...but buys over $730,000 in cars.
• Rated 'M' (for Mature Audiences only): The Teamsters, the Tart & a Pocketful of Meth featuring one of the best quotes ever [upon appearing before a judge on drug charges]: "…before the accident, I was a heroin addict and used crack, but I don't do drugs any more. I'm a Teamster."
• Shameful: SEIU's Top 10 Bloopers Compiled by Stern Burger With Fries, one of the growing list of SEIU-critical blogs (this one apparently written by disaffected SEIU members) that is increasingly condemning of the Union of Purple People Eaters and its Lord of Labor, Andy Stern, his Queen, Anna Burger, and their collectivist minions.
• Dis-United Labor Union Boss Crows Over SEIU-Muddied Merger. UNITE-HERE's John Wilhelm is crowing over what he says is evidence that his rivals are falling apart and being absorbed into SEIU: "A war that they chose to start has become a war that they cannot win, although it is not yet ended."

Until next time, we offer you our very best wishes!

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Cross-posted.

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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