After the Senate rejected an attempt to confirm President Barack Obama’s nomination of pro-compulsory unionism radical Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Obama appointed Becker via a recess appointment.

On the heals of the appointment, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys sprang into action and filed 12 recusal motions asking Becker to step aside in any pending case involving the Foundation, citing Becker’s bias against independent-minded workers and the Foundation (download two of the motions in .pdf format here and here). The Wall Street Journal reports:

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation said Becker, who has served as counsel for the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, should not hear cases in which the foundation is providing legal aid to workers, because Becker directly opposed the group while serving as counsel for the SEIU and because his prior writings demonstrate a bias against the group.

“We just don’t think he’s going to be able to impartially adjudicate cases involving the Foundation’s attorneys,” said Nick Cote, a spokesman for the group. He cited several writings, including a 2005 article that Becker co-wrote in the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law in which the foundation is referred to as “funded by the most anti-union fringe of the employer community.”

And as Mark Hemmingway from the Washington Examiner observes:

Well, here’s a new wrinkle. One of the biggest interests groups on labor issues in Washington is National Right to Work. Unions try and portray the organization as a shill for big business, but the fact is that National Right to Work is the only organization providing free legal aid to workers with grievances against their union, and is otherwise responsible for doing a lot to keep unions in check.

Not surprisingly, Becker hates National Right to Work and has written several pointed things about the group including that they are “funded by the most anti-union fringe of the employer community” and are “ideologically driven.” Considering that Becker believes “employers should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practice case,” he’s probably not the best judge of what it means to be “ideologically driven” or part of “the anti-union fringe.”

Becker has also written “at the urging of the [National] Right to Work Committee the Supreme Court has developed a virtual obsession [with cases where workers get legal aid from the National Right to Work].” And there are other examples of National Right to Work antipathy.

Well, the fact is that you can’t swing a dead cat in the labor relations world without hitting something National Right to Work is involved in. It’s hard to imagine that Becker is capable of giving them (or just about anyone who isn’t a union) a fair hearing. National Right to Work has responded by filing… recusal motions against Becker on the National Labor Relations Board. It will be telling to see how this gets handled.

Meanwhile, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work appeared on the Fox Business Channel regarding the Becker appointment: