Over the weekend, President Obama used recess appointments to fill 15 administrative posts without Senate confirmation, including the appointments of former union attorney Craig Becker and fellow-Democrat Mark Pearce to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Craig Becker's NLRB nomination had been widely opposed across the business community and in the Republican-minority Senate. Opposition to Becker's nomination has been focused primarily on his writings that suggest that several of the changes included in the pending Employee Free Choice Act legislation could be achieved through NLRB rule-making and interpretation of existing legislation. For example, Becker, a former law professor, suggested in a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article that employers should not have a voice in unionization elections.

Becker and Pearce are expected to begin their work at the NLRB as early as next week, making it more important than ever that your business is engaged and prepared.

At Leonard, Street and Deinard, our labor attorneys have developed strategies for ensuring positive employee relations and frequently work with clients to further those relations in order to remain union-free. Although the NLRB's rules will likely be changing in light of President Obama's recent recess appointments, our underlying strategy, which we have refined over the past 20 years, will remain the same. This strategy is explained more fully in the attachments.