Guest Post: Obama's Recess Appointments Send Some Bullies a Message

by: Katherine Haenschen

Fri Jan 06, 2012 at 02:31 PM CST

Well, not anymore! In addition to his recess appointment of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Obama has filled the three NLRB vacancies. To give more context on this situation, BOR invited René Lara & Ed Sills from the Texas AFL-CIO to explain the significance of these appointments.

Obama's Recess Appointments Send Some Bullies a Message

By René Lara & Ed Sills, Texas AFL-CIO

President Obama's aggressive decision this week to make recess appointments after Republicans signaled they would confirm no one, no matter how qualified, to important posts, follows through on his warning in 2008 that his opponents should not bring a knife to a gunfight.

The president's recess-appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three labor law experts to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to re-establish a quorum at that agency acknowledged that the White House had no option but to take on forces that seek to stifle the act of governing.

Seen in full context, the election of Obama in 2008 was followed by a level of partisan behavior by Republicans that is unprecedented in our lifetimes. We would readily concede that no minority party gives any president a free ride, but it has been a very long time since a minority party behaved with the utter lack of nuance we have witnessed in the last three years.

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, baldly declared that the major goal for his party, rather than accomplish any intrinsic good for Americans, was to defeat Obama in 2012. And Republicans have validated McConnell's view time and again. Even after the 2008 election had provided the clearest mandate a Democratic president had received since the days of President Johnson, Republican senators systematically used the filibuster to stop legislation and appointments that had clear majority support. The shut-down strategy paid off, at least temporarily, in the 2010 elections, when the economy swooned in the aftermath of the Bush-era recession and Republicans were able to elevate normal minority party gains to historic proportions.

Democrats are no innocents in the partisan wars. But the GOP emphasis on "voter ID" laws and partisan attacks on labor unions are in large part about partisanship. "Voter ID" laws, enacted with virtually no Democratic support, have become a national GOP strategy aimed at doing what poll taxes and literacy tests used to accomplish for white majorities - knocking away percentages of the opposition vote.

The raw partisanship at work in the nation's capital permeates assaults on the NLRB. Attempts to enact union-bashing legislation in New Hampshire, Indiana and other venues seek to tamp down the opposition vote from union quarters.  Obama's appointments to the NLRB send a strong signal to Republicans and their business constituency.  After all, this is the government agency that is supposed to protect workers who want to form a union to negotiate a contract with their employer.  For years that agency has been rendered toothless by laws that allow employers to scare employees into voting against forming a union.

The dismay displayed by Republicans this week over Obama's recess appointments may have more to do with his decision to take on bullies than with the substance of the appointment. But if Obama has to punch a bully, he chose a good place to hit him. The office of the presidency is not without power even against the most recalcitrant Congress or the "trusts" that Teddy Roosevelt busted a century ago.

Obama's patience has finally worn thin, and that's a good thing.

Lara is the Director of Legislation/Politics at the Texas AFL-CIO. Sills is Communications Director at the Texas AFL-CIO.

Justice for Sale: Price of Immunity, $2,000,000?

by: Matt Glazer

Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 09:01 AM CDT

Specifically, the Texas Supreme Court will hear arguments to determine whether the former CEO of BP must travel from London, England to Austin, Texas to give a deposition to lawyers representing the families of those injured in the March 2005 explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas-- an explosion that killed 15 workers and seriously injured more than 170.

"When you go to work, you should get to come home in one piece," said Becky Moeller, president of the Texas AFL-CIO. "Are we as a state going to require that corporations take responsibility for getting workers to their homes and families safely? Or will we stand by as the Supreme Court continues to erect shields protecting corporate leaders from that accountability?"

Lord Browne argues that he should not have to answer questions about the decisions he made that contributed to the tragic deaths of 15 Texas workers and the injuries of hundreds more in the explosion at Texas City. But this is about much more than whether one man will have to answer a few questions. It's about accountability and responsibility.

"The decisions made by corporate CEO's in board rooms all around the world threaten the safety of communities right here in Texas," said Alex Winslow, executive director of Texas Watch. "Children on their way to school, families who breathe our air and drink our water, and small business owners who serve the plant and its workers all face a greater danger when CEOs are allowed to avoid accountability for the decisions they make."

And it's about the Texas Supreme Court receiving millions of dollars from special interests it then swaddles in blankets of immunity from civil prosecution for the harm they do to Texas workers and families. When wrongdoers are not held accountable, public safety and security is threatened.

Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, said that more than 175 corporations and CEOs have joined BP to fight against corporate accountability. "On any given day this court is teeming with conflicts of interest, but perhaps none greater than in the BP case. A review of the justices' campaign records shows they have taken $2 million from interests are that are arguing for BP," McDonald said.

Glenn Smith, Director of the Texas Progress Council (a group I contract with) and frequent writer here at BOR, sums the conflict up by saying:

"Glib sound bites and special-interest double-talk about our judicial system can no longer hide the agenda of some irresponsible corporate interests," said Glenn Smith, director of the Texas Progress Council. "That agenda is nothing less than the goal of permanent immunity from civil prosecution for negligent and willful practices that maim and kill."

Texas AFL-CIO President, Becky Moeller highlights the direct legal impact in an interview at Corporate Crime Report.

"Our regulatory system has failed," Moeller said. "Because of a long-standing budgetary starvation diet and warped priorities, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration will do a preventive inspection of a Texas workplace on the order of once every 100 years unless a complaint is filed."

Texas has no state OSHA to pick up the slack.

"When someone dies, OSHA shows up and may impose fines that are for practical purposes regarded as a cost of doing business," Moeller said. "In the case of the BP explosion, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board issued an objective report that took BP's management to task. But it was the civil justice system that invoked the most serious consequences for BP and laid bare the cold calculations BP made in trading worker safety for short-term profit."

Today we will see whether justice is blind or for sale to the highest bidder.  Texas Progress Council has put together this video to tell the story for the ones that can't.