CWA: Coalition Will Continue to Work to Fix the Broken Senate and Ensure NLRB Confirmation

Following is a statement by Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, on today’s Senate action that will allow votes on some executive nominations:

“It's likely that we'll see four of the seven nominations go forward as part of the agreement reached by the Senate, and that's positive. This encourages us that we can move toward a 21st century democracy when, as in this case, we build a broad coalition like Fix the Senate Now to mobilize Americans and make sure their voices are heard.

This agreement means that a Secretary of Labor, an administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency and a director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among others, finally will be confirmed. Several of these nominees have been held up by Senate gridlock for two years.

Today’s Senate action does raise this question: of the seven nominations, why were two nominees to the National Labor Relations Board singled out?

However, our main goal was to move all these nominations forward, and today’s agreement is a big step forward to ensuring that President Obama’s executive branch nominations will be confirmed.

President Obama will nominate two good candidates to the NLRB who will stand up for the workplace rights of 80 million working Americans. We also commend Majority Leader Reid and most of the Senate Democratic majority for standing with President Obama and working to move all these nominations forward.

Our path for change remains the Fix the Senate Now coalition, an organization of unions, civil rights and community groups, greens, people of faith and others. We will continue to work together to fix the broken Senate and to ensure that a Democratic majority on the NLRB is confirmed before the August recess as the Senate has assured.”

Contact: Candice Johnson or Chuck Porcari, CWA Communications, 202-434-1168, cjohnson@cwa-union.org and cporcari@cwa-union.org