Former NLRB chairman withdraws nomination

Robert J. Battista, the former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, has asked President George W. Bush to withdraw his nomination to the board for another term. Batista is joining law firm Littler Mendelson, specializing in management and labor disputes.

Battista and other Republican members of the board came under fire from Congressional Democrats last year over a series of decisions the lawmakers said eroded the rights and protections of union members. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., called the board’s GOP majority “the most anti-worker, anti-labor, anti-union board in its history.”

The terms of three of the board’s members expired at the beginning of the year, leaving the board to take the unusual step of declaring a two-person quorum so that the board could issue decisions with only two members. The Senate had yet to act on the nomination of Battista or the other two nominees - Democrat Dennis P. Walsh and Republican Gerard Morales - since Bush nominated them in late January.

White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said yesterday: “It’s unfortunate that the country has lost another devoted public servant because the Senate failed to act on important nominations in a timely manner.”

Reacting to the withdrawal of Battista’s nomination today, Kennedy said: “Mr. Battista’s tenure on the Board made clear that he was not going to stand up for the nation’s workers.”

“I urge the President to send us a new nominee who will reverse the Board’s anti-worker, anti-union, anti-labor bias,” Kennedy said. “In these difficult economic times, it is more important than ever for employees to have a Board that protects their rights.”

Bush announces NLRB nominees

President George W. Bush has submitted his nominees to fill the three vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board - and two of them may face a less-than-easy road to confirmation coming off a rocky year for the agency.

After recent term expirations left the Board operating with only two members, on Friday, the president announced his intention to renominate former Board Chairman Robert Batista, a Republican, to return to the agency’s chief post. Bush is also renominating Democrat Dennis P. Walsh to the Board.

The third nominee will be Republican Gerard Morales, a labor, construction and employment partner at Phoenix firm Snell & Wilmer. He is a former adjunct professor at the University of Arizona College of Law and a former NLRB field attorney.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee which recently called NLRB members to testify before congress to explain some of their decisions, wasted no time in giving his opinion of the two Republican nominees.

“It’s unbelievable that President Bush would renominate Mr. Battista to the Board, after he led the most anti-worker, anti-labor, anti-union Board in its history,” Kennedy said in a statement Friday after Bush made the nomination announcement. “America’s hard-working men and women deserve a Board that will uphold their rights, not undermine them. With these nominations, the Administration has again demonstrated its hostility to fairness and justice in the workplace.”