Villains of the Year: Manchin and Sinema Gift Key Appointment to Trump
Barf Bag: The pissbaby pair blocked Joe Biden's nominee to a board that enforces labor laws.
Photos: Getty Images Politics
Jezebel readers know exactly what we think about Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrats-turned-Independents who have blocked progress at every turn and have been annoying as fuck about it.
Now they’ve done something that will actively set the country back: Block President Joe Biden‘s nominee to the National Labor Relations Board and basically gift the seat to President-elect Donald Trump and shift it to Republican control. On Wednesday, Sinema and Manchin both voted no to confirm current NLRB chair Lauren McFarren to another five-year term; the vote failed 49 to 50.
The makeup of the NLRB is a big deal for workers’ rights: the five-member board “oversees labor disputes, supervises union elections and has the power to investigate unfair labor practices,” as the Associated Press explains. It’s a crucial enforcement body for when employers, like, say, Amazon and Tesla, bargain in bad faith or refuse to even recognize workers who’ve organized a union. Republicans have hated the Democratic-controlled NLRB for regularly siding with unions, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the day before the vote that Senators should consider the “gross mismanagement of Ms. McFerran’s watch.”
And now, as the labor publication More Perfect Union noted, Manchinema “effectively handed Trump control of the board when his term begins.”‘
McFarren’s term expires on Monday — four days before the Senate is set to adjourn — meaning Trump will likely get to nominate her replacement. Had McFarren been confirmed, Democrats could have controlled the NLRB until at least August 2026, when the next member’s term is up.
Both Sinema and Manchin are retiring and will leave Congress next month, so there is no reason to do this other than they legitimately hate workers’ rights, or they’re trying to appease their future corporate lobbying bosses.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest union consortium, slammed the Senators who voted no. “Make no mistake: This vote had nothing to do with stopping Chair McFerran’s renomination and everything to do with reversing generations of progress workers have made toward building a fairer and more just economy,” Shuler said. I bet all the billionaires ready to work for the Trump administration are very happy.
This gigantic failure was apparently enabled by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who appeared not to know how his caucus would vote, or whether they were even around to participate. (Both Sinema and Manchin caucus with the Democrats.) As Axios reports:
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