EDITORIAL

Feb 8, 2010 — The Augusta Chronicle

Feb. 8, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- The Obama folks appear to think that businesses have too much power, and that workers in America are oppressed.

They ought to ask business owners -- who can hardly keep up with the government's suffocating regulations, paperwork and litigation fodder.

The Obama folks seem to believe a resurgence of Big Labor would be good for the country.

They ought to let workers decide that, don't you think?

Instead, the Obama administration wants to end the secret ballot in workplace elections over whether to unionize. They want a "card check" system in which employees would have to declare their support or opposition in full view of often intimidating union bosses.

In other words, they want to turn up the peer pressure to the boiling point in order to vastly increase union membership in the country.

They want to further that scheme with Senate approval of union leader and lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. That vote is expected as early as today -- and will test whether the new filibuster-worthy Republican minority, since the election of Scott Brown of Massachusetts, can block an Obama nominee widely considered to be radical.

Becker has been associate general counsel to both the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

There's no doubt he shares the Obama administration lust for more Big Labor -- and might try to do away with the secret ballot in union elections by fiat, rather than legislation.

This is a radical agenda that would hamstring American companies with bureaucracy, government and higher labor costs at a time when the country is trying to emerge from the worst recession in decades.

We hope Senate Republicans can block his nomination and send a message that such radical, anti-democratic policies won't be shoved down our throats without a fight.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0004-41883515