By MELANIE TROTTMAN
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Tuesday to confirm President Barack Obama’s full slate of five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board, erasing doubts about the validity of the board and its future actions.
Questions about the legitimacy of the board, which oversees private-sector union elections and referees workplace disputes at unionized and nonunionized companies, have persisted since Mr. Obama installed two members using so-called recess appointments last year while Congress was on a break. Those appointments are under Supreme Court review after lower courts found the Senate wasn’t technically in recess at the time. There are also questions about the validity of roughly 800 board decisions made since the appointments.
Mr. Obama recently withdrew the nominations of the two appointees and nominated two others to fill their seats. The swap was part a broader Senate deal to clear the nominations of five other executive-branch nominees. The two new picks for the labor board joined three previous board nominees who have been awaiting confirmation.
The three Democrats and two Republicans were confirmed in votes that at times were largely partisan. The Democrats include Kent Hirozawa, chief counsel to NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce; and Nancy Schiffer, who has worked as a lawyer for union federation AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers. Both cleared the Senate on 54-44 votes. The third Democrat, Mr. Pearce, was confirmed on a 59-38 vote for a second term that will start after his current one expires Aug. 27.
The Republicans confirmed on voice vote are Philip Miscimarra, a partner in the labor and employment group of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP, and Harry Johnson III, a partner with Arent Fox LLP.
Before the voting began, Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa), chairman of the Senate labor committee that has overseen the NLRB nominations, told lawmakers there was no reason all the nominees shouldn’t be confirmed with strong bipartisan support.
“The vetting process has been quick, but it has been thorough,” he said. “The board is the only place workers can go if they’ve been treated unfairly and denied the basic protections that the law provides,” said Mr. Harkin, who noted that employers can also seek help from the board when unions conduct “wildcat strikes.”
But the Senate labor committee’s ranking Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee raised fresh concerns about Ms. Schiffer and Mr. Hirozawa’s ability to set aside what he has called their “pro-union advocacy past” and ability to “act as neutral arbiters between employees and employers.” Mr. Alexander said Tuesday he is still “not persuaded they’ll be able to transfer their positions of [union] advocacy to positions of judge.” He voted against them while supporting Mr. Pearce and the two Republican nominees.
The NLRB is an independent federal agency but its board members are appointed by the president. Tradition holds that if the president is Democrat, so too are most board members. The same is true for GOP presidents. The arrangement draws board critics during every administration but Republicans say the Obama-chosen board has gone further than ever to advance union interests in a way that is unfair to employers.
For their part, Mr. Hirozawa and Ms. Schiffer have said during their hearings that they would be neutral when making board decisions. But business groups remain concerned.
“Frankly, we’re concerned about the composition on the board and we can only hope that they’ll bring objectivity to their decisions,” said Randy Johnson, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s senior vice president of labor.
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