Salem, New Hampshire (CNN) - In a new TV ad released in South Carolina, Mitt Romney took aim at a controversial decision by President Barack Obama to appoint new members to the national labor board.
The 30-second spot, titled "Free Enterprise," criticized three recess appointments Obama made Wednesday to the National Labor Relations Board - a frequent target for congressional Republicans whose actions they were hoping to stymie.
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Romney said the board was "stacked with union stooges" and accused the president of making his decisions based on political calculations.
"You're seeing a president adopt policies which affect our economy based not upon what's right for the American worker but instead what's right for their politics," Romney said in the spot.
Over a congressional break, Obama appointed two Democrats and a Republican to the board - actions Republicans previously blocked.
The Romney ad will hit the airwaves on Thursday in South Carolina, a state recently embroiled in a lawsuit over union rights.
The NLRB eventually dropped its suit against Boeing in South Carolina. The labor board had attempted to block Boeing from moving part of its operation to South Carolina, a non-union so-called right-to-work state.
In the ad Romney charged Obama "says to a free enterprise like Boeing, 'You can't build a factory in South Carolina because South Carolina is a Right to Work state.'"
Romney continued: "That is simply un-American. It is political payback of the worst kind."
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His appointment of Courday is even more controversial. The verbage in the Dodd-Frank bill (i,e, MESS) that created he agency clearly states tht the board has NO power until a director is CONFIRMED BY THE SENATE. Clearly, the appointment will be nullified by the courts.
I hope Mitt Romney is the GOP nominee and I hope this will put and end to the GOP spouting about how America is a christian nation. The christian conservitives leader must conceed power to another growing religion. The end of over a 200 hundreds year tradition will come to and end. Thank you Mitt Romney. Thank God.
The Republican contents becomes one of "Do you take labor relations back to the 1920s (Romney) or the 1850s (Paul)?"
Romney's use of the NLRB probe of Boeing is typical of their distortion of reality. Laws have been in place since the 30's that companies can not retaliate against unions. The Boeing CEO flagrantly violated it when he announced he'd move all the jobs to SC break the union following its strike. The union filed an NLRB complaint and before the NLRB ever made a final ruling, the union and Boeing reached a compromise that enabled the complaint to be dropped.
Totally agree, that everyone should have the right to work, without belonging to a union.
So true. Romney is the Man.
Really Mitt? Do you really expect ANYBODY to truely feel like you have any interest at all about what is actually good for Americans? You have been so increadibly transparent over the past 4 years that you have been on the national stage – showing that you will calculate your every move to what you think people want to hear, and not really what is best.
President Obama appoints a bipartisan board for American workers, and Romney still cries about it.
with so many people who want to work.. you would think obama would do what ever he could to allow people to find work..but nope .. no pipe line ..fights aganist plant on s carolina... wont allow drilling in ohio... pitful...
Just one more reason to get rid of our failure as a President. Can you imagine what he would do if he was elected again and was even more unrestrained by not having to face voters to get re-elected. We don't want to go there. Obama was elected as just left of center and at least half the country knew it was an outright lie. The more I talk to my friends that are Democrats or undecided before the more they are saying no way are they voting for Obama again.
GOP labor policy: Oh well...if we can't make only some of you slaves, we'll just make ALL of you slaves.
Mitt, so out of touch with the real world!
Mitt Romney is proving Adam Smith's statement from " The Wealth of Nations" correct, that businessmen could not be relied upon to govern because the interests they would support would be their own, not the nation's. The opposition to Boeing was based upon the fact that the move to South Carolina would have devastated Washington, and would not have produced any new jobs nationwide. Romney's expertise is not in creating jobs, whether it was at Bain or as Governor, but in lining his own pockets with brass. Romney has never done anything to benefit American workers, since he had people re-apply for jobs they held for years at vastly reduced wages and benefits and no pensions or 401ks: how is that looking out for the American worker? And since when is exercising executive authority a politically motivated crime?. Obama has appointed both a Democrat and a Republican, so Romney's charges of payoffs to unions are pandering of the worst kind. Romney exercised his executive authority to line-item veto over 300 times based on what he felt was right, so why is he complaining about Obama exercising his executive authority as he sees fit?
Mittens is an idiot. I think the republican obstruction is becoming more obvious to the American people.
Defending corporations and profits again Mitt? How's that Bain deal work out for you? Outsourcing OK with you? Corporate profits good....american workers rights bad!
Romney is the guy who helped push thousands of American jobs offshore to India and China. He's got a huge pair to even bring up the topic of American labor.
We have a republican house and lots of republicans that are holding up appointments for judge, director of federal departments, etc., just to make the president look bad.
WE know who is up to mischief here. And the baggers and a few republican senators will be unemployed in 2013.
Well, I guess the Republican Obama nominated must also be a stooge. Romney is so full of it that he should be ashamed. I wonder what he thought of the recess appointments to the NLRB that Reagan made in his time?
The Republicans have blocked everything the President has tried to do. I say good for him! If he can't get it done through Congress, go around them.
On this issue, the Republicans have shown that they are patently anti-labor. Let us not forget that "labor", in this context, is pretty much everyone who works for a living that is not management. So, essentially, the Republicans are against protecting the rights of the working poor and middle class. Gee, there's a surprise.