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Bush Nominates Anti-Union Lawyer to NLRB
Showing his contempt for workers yet again, President George W. Bush has announced he will nominate an aggressively anti-union attorney to fill one of two vacancies on the five-member National Labor Relations Board.
Peter Kirsanow, a Cleveland attorney who represents management in labor cases, has most recently drawn fire for his ultraconservative views as a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
Kirsanow, who is African-American, said in a 2002 speech on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, that affirmative action has "metastasized into a racial spoils system consisting of preferences, quotas and set-asides."
The commission, which under Bush has a conservative majority, has adopted Kirsanow's proposals that only majority-approved reports appear on the website and that a draft report criticizing the civil rights record of the Bush administration be removed from the site.
In 1997, Kirsanow blasted President Clinton's proposal that federal construction projects be awarded only to contractors with unionized work forces, claiming it would hurt black-owned businesses because he said they're less likely to have unions.
A year earlier, as a member of Project 21, a group of black conservative leaders, Kirsanow championed anti-union legislation in California that was intended to keep labor out of politics.
"Over the years, millions of employees subsidized, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, union activities wholly unrelated to employees' wages or terms and conditions of employment," Kirsanow said. "The Worker Right to Know Act corrects the repugnant union practice of forcing employees to financially support political positions and arguments to which the employees are personally opposed."
Kirsanow's appointment to the Civil Rights Commission forced a more liberal member off the board. During his tenure, the commission found that in spite of hundreds of complaints of voter intimidation and often-successful attempts to keep minorities from the polls in Florida on Election Day 2000, such claims were a "myth" - as Kirsanow wrote in a column for National Review.
In addition to Kirsanow, who would serve until 2008, Bush has nominated Republican Peter Schaumber to continue until 2010 in what started as a short-term recess appointment. He has also nominated Republican Ronald Meisburg, a former board member, as general counsel. Former Member Dennis Walsh has been nominated to fill the remaining Democratic seat.
Peter Kirsanow, a Cleveland attorney who represents management in labor cases, has most recently drawn fire for his ultraconservative views as a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
Kirsanow, who is African-American, said in a 2002 speech on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, that affirmative action has "metastasized into a racial spoils system consisting of preferences, quotas and set-asides."
The commission, which under Bush has a conservative majority, has adopted Kirsanow's proposals that only majority-approved reports appear on the website and that a draft report criticizing the civil rights record of the Bush administration be removed from the site.
In 1997, Kirsanow blasted President Clinton's proposal that federal construction projects be awarded only to contractors with unionized work forces, claiming it would hurt black-owned businesses because he said they're less likely to have unions.
A year earlier, as a member of Project 21, a group of black conservative leaders, Kirsanow championed anti-union legislation in California that was intended to keep labor out of politics.
"Over the years, millions of employees subsidized, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, union activities wholly unrelated to employees' wages or terms and conditions of employment," Kirsanow said. "The Worker Right to Know Act corrects the repugnant union practice of forcing employees to financially support political positions and arguments to which the employees are personally opposed."
Kirsanow's appointment to the Civil Rights Commission forced a more liberal member off the board. During his tenure, the commission found that in spite of hundreds of complaints of voter intimidation and often-successful attempts to keep minorities from the polls in Florida on Election Day 2000, such claims were a "myth" - as Kirsanow wrote in a column for National Review.
In addition to Kirsanow, who would serve until 2008, Bush has nominated Republican Peter Schaumber to continue until 2010 in what started as a short-term recess appointment. He has also nominated Republican Ronald Meisburg, a former board member, as general counsel. Former Member Dennis Walsh has been nominated to fill the remaining Democratic seat.