Senate Committee Avoids Public Hearing, Despite Call from Employer Groups
Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (“HELP”) announced it had scheduled a meeting for October 21 to consider without a hearing the Administration’s three nominees to the NLRB. The HELP Committee’s action occurred despite pleas by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Trade Associations to Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D- IA) and Ranking Member Michael B. Enzi (R- CO) that a hearing be conducted before the Committee passes on the nominations.
One of the nominees, Craig Becker, was the subject of a Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday arguing that a public hearing for Becker is needed since the “stakes are too high to let him pass without more Senate and public scrutiny.” (“Acorn’s Ally at the NLRB; Obama appoints an SEIU man with ties to Blago [former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich,]” WSJ, October 15, 2009).
EFCA or no EFCA, October 21, 2009, may well be remembered as the first day of so-called labor law reform.