The man who targeted Boeing last year for opening a non-union plant in South Carolina, sued Arizona (and threatened other states) for protecting their citizens’ right to secret-ballot elections, as well as generally done union bosses’ bidding over the last two years is in hot water over a breach of ethics.
Lafe Solomon, the Acting General Counsel (he’s never been confirmed by the Senate) of Obama’s National Labor Relations Board, has been found by the NLRB’s violated federal ethics rules by helping investigate a case involving Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., a company that Solomon owned more than $18,000 in stock.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s Melanie Trottman:
The National Labor Relations Board’s internal watchdog has found the agency’s top lawyer violated its ethics standards by participating in a case involving a company in which he had a financial stake.
The NLRB inspector general, in a report dated Thursday, said an investigation found that Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon made decisions about how to proceed in a case involving Wal-Mart Stores Inc., in which Mr. Solomon owned more than $15,000 in stock. The case focused on whether the retail company’s social-media policy violated federal labor law.
Mr. Solomon, through his attorney, William Taylor III of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, denied any ethics breach. Mr. Taylor said the IG reached the “wrong conclusion.” In a letter to the IG dated Friday, he said Mr. Solomon “didn’t commit even a technical violation of applicable ethics rules.”
While Solomon’s ethical breach involves his participation in a case involving a company in which he has a financial interest, it is reminiscent of former acting NLRB member Craig Becker’s ethical lapses, where Becker refused to recuse himself from cases involving his former (and present) employers, the SEIU and AFL-CIO.
Of course, given the fact that Solomon (like other acting Board members) has never been confirmed by the Senate and, yet, has the ability to prosecute companies in his capacity, it is doubtful that anything will come of this until January 2013–and that is only if Barack Obama loses the election.
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“Truth isn’t mean. It’s truth.”
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)
