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Jacobson: Moving to Plan B for Labor’s Pains
...Thus, we have today’s hearing for Becker, a longtime strategist and lawyer for organized labor. If they can’t get “card check” through a broad, participatory legislative process, they’ll push to grab a similar victory through the federal board’s ability to regulate without approval of the people’s Representatives.

As such, this hearing — demanded by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is troubled by Becker’s blatantly anti-employer views — signals that we have officially hit plan B on the administration’s strategy for pandering to the organized labor lobby. This new course will focus on the quiet job-killer of regulation and card check by fiat. ...

...At a fundamental level, this strategy — which is playing out as the administration also looks to back off climate legislation in favor of regulation through the Environmental Protection Agency — aims to move important fights from highly visible (highly accountable) debates among elected officials to obscured rulemaking by bureaucrats. The goal is to use leverage away from the eyes of the public, which clearly is not enamored of labor’s agenda. ...