Because of President Barack Obama's recess appointments of two union lawyers to the National Labor Relations Board, business groups are warning that the panel will kick quickly into a pro-union gear after 26 months of near paralysis, when just two of its five seats were filled. Business groups fear that the appointment of Craig Becker, a lawyer for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, will push the board to favor unions on dozens of issues -- like whether companies should be required to allow union organizers on their property during organizing drives. 'Becker will bring a very strong, pro-union, anti-employer animus to decision-making at the board,' said Randel K. Johnson, an executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 'Our view is he will resolve things almost invariably in favor of unions.' Business organizations also worry that the board will revamp the rules for unionization elections by engaging more than ever before in broad rule-making while relying less on case-by-case decision-making. Labor unions argue that the recess appointments of Becker and Mark Pearce, a lawyer based in Buffalo, N.Y., will merely restore some balance after the board favored business under President George W. Bush. The labor board, created by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, oversees enforcement of the laws governing union drives, strikes and negotiating labor contracts in the private sector. Among the areas where unions hope the Obama board will take a new tack is the Bush-era ruling that graduate teaching assistants are not employees and therefore do not have a right to unionize. Labor leaders also hope the Obama board will reverse a ruling that many senior nurses are supervisors, rather than rank and file, and thus cannot join a union. That decision has hamstrung many unionization drives at hospitals by leading to litigation about which nurses can unionize. One thing labor and business agree on is that the board's deadlock will soon end. Since January 2008, the board has had just one Democratic member, its chairwoman, Wilma B. Liebman, and one Republican, Peter C. Schaumber. Now there will be three Democrats and one Republican. 