Obama
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - The AFL-CIO announced Tuesday that Craig Becker, a former member to the National Labor Relations Board will become its co-general counsel.
Becker was a March 2010 recess appointee of President Barack Obama - after two Democrats joined Republicans in preventing a filibuster of his nomination.
Congressional Republicans criticized Becker as being too pro-union given his past employment by the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union. The public policy research and education institute, the Heritage Foundation, called him "Big Labor's Big Ally."
He was also being investigated by the Inspector General for conflicts of interest.
Becker denied that neither he nor the other Democrats serving on the NLRB were biased in favor of labor unions. But in 1993 he wrote an article for the Minnesota Law Review stating that employers should be barred from attending NLRB hearings about elections and could not contest election results.
He resigned from the board in December. Since leaving the NLRB he has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University law school.
Hans von Spakovsky, who manages the Civil Justice Reform Initiative for the Heritage Foundation, feels Becker is an example of the intimate relationship that exists between Big Labor and the Obama administration
"There is nothing wrong with someone leaving private organizations to work for government," he said. "But they must make that transition from representing the private organization to representing the people.
"Too many people affiliated with the Obama administration cannot make the transition. Becker is an example of this. He thought he still represented his former clients."