March 27, 2010
Dear State Federations, Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations, and Regional
Leaders:
As a result of all your hard work, we would like to thank everyone who made calls and made this happened. We are pleased to announce that President Obama has moved forward on key recess appointments to the NLRB.
Please see below statement from President Trumka in response to these important recess appointment's and the official White House press statement.
To: Executive Council
From: Richard L. Trumka
Date: March 27, 2010
I am pleased to inform you that earlier this afternoon President Obama announced his intention to recess appoint Craig Becker and Mark Pearce to the National Labor Relations Board. As you know, the appointment of these two highly qualified nominees--- both former union-side labor lawyers --- has been one of the labor movement's highest priorities. After the Republicans denied
Becker a vote on his nomination early last month, we have been urging the Administration to give both Craig and Mark recess appointments. Many of you personally, as well as your unions and state and local bodies around the country, played a major role in reminding the White House and Congress of the importance of these appointments.
I was also very pleased to learn that the Administration has decided to leave the third vacant
Board seat unfilled for now, rather than appointing the pending Republican nominee. We had argued that to make that recess appointment at this time would simply reward the Republicans for their months of stonewalling and their continuing attempts to deny workers a fair shake at the
NLRB.
Many thanks once again to all of you who played such an important role in this successful effort.

Below please find the White House announcement, issued earlier today:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 27, 2010
President Obama Announces Recess Appointments to Key Administration Positions
Fifteen Appointees Have Waited an Average of 214 Days for Senate Confirmation
WASHINGTON -After facing months of Republican obstruction to administration nominees,
President Obama announced his intent to recess appoint fifteen nominees to fill critical administration posts that have been left vacant, including key positions on the economic team and on boards that have been left with vacancies for months.
"The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis," said President Barack Obama. "Most of the men and women whose appointments I am announcing today were approved by Senate committees months ago, yet still await a vote of the Senate. At a time of economic emergency, two top appointees to the Department of Treasury have been held up for nearly six months. I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government."
Following their appointment, these nominees will remain in the Senate for confirmation.
Obama Administration appointees have faced an unprecedented level of obstruction in the
Senate.

· President Obama currently has a total of 217 nominees pending before the Senate. These nominees have been pending for an average of 101 days, including 34 nominees pending for more than 6 months.
· The 15 nominees President Obama intends to recess appoint have been pending for an average of 214 days or 7 months for a total of 3204 days or almost 9 years.
* President Bush had made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency, but he was not facing the same level of obstruction. At this time in 2002, President Bush had only 5 nominees pending on the floor. By contrast, President Obama has 77 nominees currently pending on the floor, 58 of whom have been waiting for over two weeks and 44 of those have been waiting more than a month.
The President announced his intention to recess appoint the following nominees:
Jeffrey Goldstein: Nominee for Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, Department of the
Treasury
Jeffrey Goldstein is a former Managing Director of Hellman & Friedman LLC, a private equity investment firm with offices in San Francisco, New York and London. Mr. Goldstein served at the World Bank from 1999 to 2004, where he served as Managing Director and Chief Financial
Officer. He oversaw the Bank's work with its client countries in strengthening financial and capital market systems. Mr. Goldstein was the Bank's point person on the International
Development Association (IDA). He also helped lead the Bank's relationship with the G-8 countries. As Chief Financial Officer, he was responsible for the Bank's financial operations and budget. He was the Bank's representative on the Financial Stability Forum and on the
International Monetary Fund's Capital Markets Consultative Group and Chairman of the Pension
Finance Committee. Prior to joining the World Bank, Mr. Goldstein was Co-Chairman of BT
Wolfensohn and a member of the Bankers Trust Company Management Committee. He held senior management positions and worked with BT Wolfensohn and its predecessor, James D.
Wolfensohn Incorporated, for more than 15 years. Early in his career, Mr. Goldstein taught economics at Princeton University and worked at the Brookings Institution and the U. S.
Department of the Treasury. Mr. Goldstein received his Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in economics from Yale University. He received his B.A. with honors in economics from Vassar College (Phi
Beta Kappa) and attended the London School of Economics. Mr. Goldstein is a member of the
Board of LPL Holdings Inc., AlixPartners LLP and Grosvenor Capital Management and the
Board of Trustees of the International Center for Research on Women. He is also on the Board of Trustees of Vassar College and is Chairman of the Vassar College Investments Committee.
He is also a member of the Brookings Institution Global Leadership Council, The London
School of Economics North American Advisory Board and is a member of the Council on
Foreign Relations.

Michael F. Mundaca: Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Department of the
Treasury
Michael F. Mundaca currently is Senior Advisor for Policy within the Treasury Department's
Office of Tax Policy and the Acting Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy. Mr. Mundaca served in the Treasury Department during the Clinton Administration and returned to the Treasury
Department in 2007, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs. Before that appointment, he was a partner for five years in the International Tax Services group of Ernst &
Young's National Tax Department, in Washington, D.C. His practice focused on cross-border planning and structuring, including especially tax treaty issues, and on international legislative and regulatory monitoring and consulting. Before joining Ernst & Young, Mr. Mundaca served for over five years in Treasury's Office of the International Tax Counsel, leaving as the Deputy
International Tax Counsel. He was also Treasury's Senior Advisor on Electronic Commerce.
Prior to that first stint in Treasury, he was an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm in
New York. Mr. Mundaca has been an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law
Center, teaching a seminar on tax treaties. Mr. Mundaca received a B.A. in philosophy and in physics from Columbia University, in 1986, and an M.A.in philosophy from the University of
Chicago, in 1988. He received a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
(Boalt Hall), in 1992, where he was Senior Executive Editor of The California Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. He also has an LL.M., in taxation (international tax specialization), from the University of Miami.
Eric L. Hirschhorn: Nominee for Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration and head of the Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce
Eric Hirschhorn, a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, long has been active in the areas of international law, litigation, and professional responsibility. As
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Export Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce
(1980-81), Mr. Hirschhorn oversaw U.S. export controls for items having commercial as well as military applications, antiboycott compliance, restraints on imports for national security reasons, and the Department's participation in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
(CFIUS). Earlier, while a member of President Jimmy Carter's reorganization project staff
(1977-80), he worked on reorganizing the government's international trade, public diplomacy, and foreign assistance mechanisms. Before working in the Executive branch, Mr. Hirschhorn held several congressional staff positions, was in private law practice in New York City, and was a legal services lawyer. Mr. Hirschhorn has represented clients on a wide range of commercial and regulatory matters since returning to private law practice in 1981. He is Executive Secretary of the Industry Coalition on Technology Transfer (ICOTT), a group whose industry participants are affected by U.S. export control and embargo rules. He is the author of The Export Control and Embargo Handbook, Second Edition, published in 2004, and numerous articles on export controls, embargoes and related topics. He chairs the D.C. Bar Rules of Professional Conduct
Review Committee and is a member (and former chair) of the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee.
He also is a member of the New York City Bar Association and the Thurgood Marshall
American Inn of Court. Mr. Hirschhorn received his B.A. degree from the University of Chicago and a J.D. degree from Columbia University, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.

Michael Punke: Nominee for Deputy Trade Representative - Geneva, Office of the United States
Trade Representative
Michael Punke has worked in the field of international trade law and policy for two decades.
From 1995 to 1996, Punke served as Senior Policy Advisor at the Office of the United States
Trade Representative. There, he advised the USTR on issues ranging from agricultural trade to intellectual property protection. From 1993 to 1995, Punke served at the White House as Director for International Economic Affairs with a joint appointment to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. His responsibilities included assisting in the management of the interagency process. From 1991 to 1992, Punke was International Trade Counsel to Senator Max
Baucus, then Chairman of the Finance Committee's International Trade Subcommittee. Punke has also worked on international trade issues from the private sector, including as a partner at the
Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Brown, Rowe, & Maw. From 2003 to 2009, Punke advised clients on trade issues through out of Missoula, Montana. Since January 2010, Punke has served as a Consultant to the U.S. Trade Representative. He also has worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Montana and as a writer, authoring a novel, two books of nonfiction, and two screenplays. Punke is a graduate of George Washington University and Cornell Law School, where he was elected Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell International Law Journal.
Francisco "Frank" J. Sánchez: Nominee for Under Secretary for International Trade, Department of Commerce
Francisco J. Sánchez currently serves as a Senior Advisor to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on international trade issues. He served as a Policy Advisor on Latin America to the Obama For
America campaign. He was also the Chairman of the campaign's National Hispanic Leadership
Council. In 1999, Sanchez became a Special Assistant to President Clinton, working in the
Office of the Special Envoy for the Americas. While at the White House, Sanchez worked with the National Security Council, the State Department and the U.S. Trade Representative. Clinton later appointed Sánchez as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Transportation where he developed aviation policy and oversaw international negotiations. Prior to his work in the federal government, Sánchez practiced corporate and administrative law with the firm of Steel, Hector and Davis in Miami, Florida. Before practicing law, he served in the administration of former
Florida Governor (and later U.S. Senator) Bob Graham, as the first director of the state's
Caribbean Basin Initiative Program. For the last 15 years, Sanchez has worked with several consulting companies on projects involving complex transactions, labor-management negotiations, litigation settlement, negotiation strategy, alliance management, facilitation and training, most recently as a partner with CM Partners. Among his public-sector engagements,
Sánchez headed a team in Medellín, Colombia as part of a "Teaching Tolerance" program. He also advised the president of Ecuador in negotiations to settle the 56-year-old border dispute with
Peru. He is a contributing author to Negociación 2000, a collection of essays on negotiation published by McGraw-Hill. A Florida native, Mr. Sánchez attended the University of Florida, received his undergraduate and law degrees from Florida State University and holds a master's degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Islam A. Siddiqui: Nominee for Chief Agricultural Negotiator, Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative

Islam A. Siddiqui is currently Vice President for Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife
America, where he is responsible for regulatory and international trade issues related to crop protection chemicals. Previously, Dr. Siddiqui also served as CropLife America's Vice President for agricultural biotechnology and trade. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Siddiqui served in various capacities in the Clinton Administration at U.S. Department of Agriculture as Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Senior Trade Advisor to Secretary Dan Glickman and
Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. As a result, he worked closely with the USTR and represented USDA in bilateral, regional and multi-lateral agricultural trade negotiations. Since 2004, Dr. Siddiqui has also served on the U.S. Department of Commerce's
Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, and Health/Science
Products & Services, which advises the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and USTR on international trade issues related to these sectors. Between 2001 and 2003, Dr. Siddiqui was appointed as
Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he focused on agricultural biotechnology and food security issues. Before joining USDA, Dr. Siddiqui spent
28 years with the California Department of Food and Agriculture. He received a B.S. degree in plant protection from Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University in Pantnagar, India, as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in plant pathology, both from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
Alan D. Bersin: Nominee for Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security
Alan Bersin was appointed by Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano in April, 2009 as
Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs in the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In that capacity, he serves as the Secretary's lead representative on Border Affairs and Mexico, for developing DHS strategy regarding security, immigration, narcotics, and trade matters affecting Mexico and for coordinating the Secretary's security initiatives on the nation's borders. Prior to his current service, Bersin served as Chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. Previously, Mr. Bersin served as
California's Secretary of Education between July 2005 and December 2006 in the Administration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Between 1998 and 2005, he served as Superintendent of
Public Education in San Diego and from 2000 to 2003 served as a member and then Chairman of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Prior to becoming the leader of the nation's eighth largest urban school district, he was appointed by President Bill Clinton as the United
States Attorney for the Southern District of California and confirmed in that capacity by the U.S.
Senate. Mr. Bersin served as U.S. Attorney for nearly five years and as the Attorney General's
Southwest Border Representative responsible for coordinating federal law enforcement on the border from South Texas to Southern California. Mr. Bersin previously was a senior partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Mr. Bersin received his A.B. in
Government from Harvard University (magna cum laude) and attended Balliol College at Oxford
University as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1974, he received his J.D. degree from the Yale Law School.:
Jill Long Thompson: Nominee for Member, Farm Credit Administration Board
Jill Long Thompson is a former Member of the United States House of Representatives and the

former Under Secretary for Rural Development at the United States Department of Agriculture.
She also served as Chief Executive Officer and Senior Fellow at The National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, a not-for-profit, non-advocacy research and policy organization. She is the first and only woman to be nominated by a major party to run for Governor in Indiana, as well as the first and only Hoosier woman to be nominated by a major party to run for the United
States Senate. Long Thompson joined the faculty at Valparaiso University in 1981 and in 1983 was elected to the City Council. In 1989 Long Thompson was elected to represent Northeast
Indiana in Congress. She went on to serve three terms in the House, where she was a member of the Agriculture Committee and the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. She introduced one of the nation's first pieces of legislation banning Members of Congress from accepting gifts and expanding the disclosure requirements for lobbying activities. After leaving Congress, Long
Thompson was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve as the Under Secretary for Rural
Development at the United States Department of Agriculture. In her five years at USDA, she oversaw a $10 billion annual budget and 7,000 employees while managing a number of programs that provide services to the underserved areas of rural America. Long Thompson earned a B.S. in
Business Administration from Valparaiso University and an M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Business from the Kelley School at Indiana University.
Rafael Borras: Nominee for Under Secretary for Management , Department of Homeland
Security
Rafael Borras currently serves as a Vice President, Construction Services, for the Mid-Atlantic
Region with URS Corporation, a global engineering services firm. Prior to joining the URS, Mr.
Borras served as the Regional Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the U.S. General
Services Administration. Prior to serving in this position, he served as Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Borras also served as
Deputy City Manager in the City of Hartford, Connecticut, where he was responsible for the departments of finance, police, fire, code enforcement, information technology, purchasing, budget, and human relations. Mr. Borras began his public sector career with Metropolitan Dade
County Government, serving in the Office of the County Administrator as an administrative officer.
Craig Becker: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board
Craig Becker currently serves as Associate General Counsel to both the Service Employees
International Union and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial
Organizations. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 1978 and received his J.D. in 1981 from Yale Law School where he was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school he clerked for the Honorable Donald P. Lay, Chief Judge of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. For the past 27 years, he has practiced and taught labor law. He was a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law between 1989 and 1994 and has also taught at the University of Chicago and Georgetown Law Schools. He has published numerous articles on labor and employment law in scholarly journals, including the Harvard Law Review and
Chicago Law Review, and has argued labor and employment cases in virtually every federal court of appeals and before the United States Supreme Court.

Mark Pearce: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board
Mark Gaston Pearce has been a labor lawyer for his entire career. He is one of the founding partners of the Buffalo, New York law firm of Creighton, Pearce, Johnsen & Giroux where he practices union side labor and employment law before state and federal courts and agencies including the N.Y.S. Public Employment Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the National Labor Relations Board. Pearce in
2008 was appointed by the NYS Governor to serve as a Board Member on the New York State
Industrial Board of Appeals, an independent quasi-judicial agency responsible for review of certain rulings and compliance orders of the NYS Department of Labor in matters including wage and hour law. Pearce has taught several courses in the labor studies program at Cornell
University's School of Industrial Labor Relations Extension. He is a Fellow in the College of
Labor and Employment Lawyers. Prior to 2002, Pearce practiced union side labor law and employment law at Lipsitz, Green, Fahringer, Roll, Salisbury & Cambria LLP. From 1979 to
1994, he was an attorney and District Trial Specialist for the NLRB in Buffalo, NY. Pearce received his J.D. from State University of New York, and his B.A. from Cornell University.
Jacqueline A. Berrien, Nominee for Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Ms. Berrien has served as Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund (LDF) since September 2004. In that position, she assists with the direction and implementation of LDF's national legal advocacy and scholarship programs. Ms. Berrien served from 2001 to 2004 as a Program Officer in the Ford Foundation's Peace and Social Justice
Program, where she administered more than $13 million of grants to promote greater political participation by underrepresented groups and remove barriers to civic engagement. Prior to joining the Ford Foundation, Ms. Berrien was an Assistant Counsel with LDF and directed the
Fund's voting rights and political participation work. For eight years before that, Ms. Berrien was a staff attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and the American Civil Liberties
Union. Berrien has also taught in trial advocacy programs at Fordham and Harvard law schools and served on the adjunct faculty of New York Law School. She began her legal career clerking for the Honorable U.W. Clemon, the first African-American appointed to the U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama. Ms. Berrien is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she served as a General Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She received her
Bachelor of Arts degree with High Honors in Government from Oberlin College and also completed a major in English.
Chai R. Feldblum: Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Chai Feldblum is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center where she has taught since 1991. She also founded the Law Center's Federal Legislation and Administrative
Clinic, a program designed to train students to become legislative lawyers. Feldblum previously served as Legislative Counsel to the AIDS Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. In this role, she developed legislation, analyzed policy on various AIDS-related issues, and played a leading role in the drafting of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and, later as a law

professor, in the passage of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. She has also worked on advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and has been a leading expert on the
Employment Nondiscrimination Act. As Co-Director of Workplace Flexibility 2010, Feldblum has worked to advance flexible workplaces in a manner that works for employees and employers.
Feldblum clerked for Judge Frank Coffin and for Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.A. from Barnard College.
Victoria A. Lipnic: Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Victoria A. Lipnic is of counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. Ms.
Lipnic was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards from 2002 until
2009. In addition to her work with the Department of Labor, Ms. Lipnic's experience in
Washington, D.C. includes service as Workforce Policy Counsel to the Republican members of the Education and Labor Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. Before her work for
Congress, Ms. Lipnic acted as in-house counsel for labor and employment matters to the U.S.
Postal Service for six years. She also served as a special assistant for business liaison to the U.S.
Secretary of Commerce, the Honorable Malcolm Baldrige. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History from Allegheny College and a Juris Doctor degree from George
Mason University School of Law.
P. David Lopez: Nominee for General Counsel, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
David Lopez has served at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for 13 years in the field and at headquarters. He began at the EEOC in 1994 as a Special Assistant to
Commissioner Casellas. Currently, Mr. Lopez is a Supervisory Trial Attorney with the EEOC's
Phoenix District Office. During his tenure, Mr. Lopez has successfully tried several cases on behalf of the EEOC in a wide variety of legal bases. Before joining the Commission, Mr. Lopez served at the Civil Rights Division, Employment Litigation Section, at the U.S. Department of
Justice in Washington, D.C. from 1991 to 1994. From 1988 to 1991, he was an Associate with
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Spiegel and McDiarmid. Mr. Lopez received a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in
1988 and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Arizona State University in 1985, magna cum laude.