Obama's Choice for Labor Board in for a Fight

Business groups are lining up against the White House’s latest appointee to the panel that decides labor-and-management disputes, the Wall Street Journal reports. Former union lawyer Craig Becker got a recess appointment to the National Labor Relations Board in March but faces opposition now that President Barack Obama has re-nominated him to a term that would last through 2014.

Becker fell short of the 60 votes he needed in the Senate last February to end a filibuster by Republicans who found him too congenial to unions. Obama installed him on the five-member board, anyways, giving Democrats a 3-2 edge that has allowed them to revisit and overturn some NLRB decisions made during the administration of President George W. Bush.

But the Democrats’ Senate majority is even smaller today and Becker’s critics now include business leaders the president is wooing with talk of less regulation and lower taxes. Becker cannot serve past the end of this year without passing muster in the Senate.