In her latest syndicated column, Michelle Malkin highlights the National Right to Work Foundation’s request that Attorney General Eric Holder investigate National Labor Relations Board Member Craig Becker for violating his ethics pledge by participating in cases involving his former employer, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

As Malkin notes, Becker’s weak standard for recusal rests on a faulty distinction between the national union and its local affiliates.

It’s no surprise that Becker now refuses to hold himself accountable for the ethics pledge he himself signed in April. As the past two years have taught us, Team Obama’s operational slogan is: Rules are for fools. The contractual ethics commitment states: "I will not for a period of two years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts." Yet, Becker has participated in numerous NLRB cases involving the SEIU and its affiliates — and is parsing the definition of "former employer" by arguing that local SEIU chapters are "separate and distinct legal entities" that don’t fall under the ethics rules.

The National Right to Work Foundation, which has fought both national and local SEIU officials in court on behalf of rank-and-file workers’ rights, eviscerates Becker’s lawyerly blather. SEIU’s own constitution considers local affiliates "constituent subordinate bodies" of the national union, the foundation notes. "Moreover, in 2009 over 85 percent of the SEIU’s receipts came from a per capita tax on the locals’ membership dues and fees. The national union even has the power to assume control over its locals if they do not conform to International policies."

Malkin also rightly ties Becker’s installment onto the federal labor board into the Obama Administration’s pattern of granting special privileges and hidden paybacks to the union bosses.

Read Malkin’s entire column here and more from our Freedom@Work blog on Craig Becker here and here.