Boehner Takes Solis to Task on Card Check

December 19, 2008 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has fired a PR shot at Secretary of Labor nominee Representative Hilda Solis for her support of the controversial Employee Free Choice Act.

In his House blog, Boehner, a consistent critic of the so-called “card check” proposal that enjoys widespread organized labor support, pointed out that Solis was a co-sponsor of the bill when it was introduced. Solis also voted for the measure when the House approved it in March 2007.

Proponents of the bill insist it will help workers in their collective bargaining efforts while opponents attack it for ending the practice of secret balloting in deciding whether or not to unionize.

Get more!  Sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters.

On Friday, President-Elect Barack Obama officially announced the Solis Department of Labor (DoL) appointment at a news conference (See Obama Expected to Give Labor Secretary Nod to Solis ).

 

“If jobs and incomes are our yardsticks, then the success of the American worker is key to the success of the American economy,’ Obama said in prepared remarks. ” For the past eight years, the Department of Labor has not lived up to its role either as an advocate for hardworking families or as an arbiter of fairness in relations between labor and management. That will change when Hilda Solis is Secretary of Labor. Under her leadership, I am confident that the Department of Labor will once again stand up for working families.”

Obama continued: “And I know that Hilda will show the same kind of leadership as Secretary of Labor that she showed in California and on the Education and Labor Committee by protecting workers’ rights – from organizing to collective bargaining, from keeping our workplaces safe to making our unions strong.”

The Boehner blog is available  here .

Obama’s Solis appointment announcement is available  here .

«