Two steps forward, one step back

December’s energetic display of commitment to workers’ rights, splashed across multiple cities on International Human Rights Day, may have felt like a gust of wind in the sails of the labor movement.

As it turns out, however, labor has leagues to go, and the waters are choppy. Just weeks after the workers’ rights demonstrations, President Bush sneaked a raft of federal appointments past the U.S. Senate during winter recess, a time that precludes Senate confirmation hearings. Among them is Peter Kirsanow, an ultra-conservative appointed to the National Labor Relations Board.

A Cleveland attorney who represents management in labor cases, Kirsanow has been openly hostile to unions, taking stands against the minimum wage, affirmative action, prevailing wages and voting rights legislation. As a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, he alarmed civil rights groups by raising the specter of internment camps for Arab-Americans. Though he later said he would not condone them, his earlier quote was indelible: “If there’s another terrorist attack, and if it’s from a certain ethnic community or certain ethnicities that the terrorists are from, you can forget civil rights in this country,” he said. “Not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops and more profiling.”

AFT president Edward J. McElroy has denounced Kirsanow’s appointment, calling the current NLRB “a national embarrassment” and “a political entity rather than a body for fair adjudication.” AFL-CIO president John Sweeney issued a statement of “grave concern,” noting in particular Kirsanow’s vehement opposition to affirmative action.

Those who marched with such solidarity in December must be vigilant as the Bush administration sets a course into a treacherous sea of conservative policy.