A major development during my short medical leave was the introduction in the House and Senate of the Employee Free Choice Act, or "card check" for union organizing. So rapidly has this issue matured, in fact, that I have cause to re-examine whether my approach to the politics of card check underweights some fundamental realities.
A week ago, virtually all of the political cognoscienti believed as an article of faith that the White House did not want Congress to introduce EFCA this year... that Obama was wavering on the legislation itself... that congressional backers were too afraid of the vote count to go ahead.
We were wrong; Obama, Vice President Biden and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis made public statements in favor of card check and the bill was introduced in both houses.
What did we miss? Until last week, administration officials did not dispute the reporting that it was slow-walking card check. Does Washington perceive the issue differently than the rest of the country?
The economy is in the tank; people are losing their jobs; support for business (generically and specifically) is at an all-time low; support for organized labor (as a force for jobs) is higher than it's been in decades. Card check is toxic in DC; but maybe, out there, it's not so hard to take the side of the working man in favor of greedy CEOs. That's a caricature, of course, of the card check debate, but think of it this way: as people get home tonight and turn on Maddow or Fox Business News or whatever, they'll hear about Bernie Madoff's guilty plea; they're not going to be very receptive to what Citibank or Wal-Mart has to say about card check.
I don't think the public understands the ins and out outs of the bill, and I still think that the "secret ballot" argument against card check is potentially a killer, but I think labor is counting on the complexity, combined with the environment (i.e., "I'm getting screwed while banks and CEOs get bail outs and bonuses), to create enough of a buffer for wavering members of Congress.
So -- does labor have the votes in the Senate? I think they're close, as Sen. Ben Nelson understands the wiggle room he has by potentially supporting cloture while opposing the final bill. I've changed my mind a bit on whether labor can survive the failure of card check. I now believe that 2009 can be a dress rehearsal for 2010 and beyond -- since the Democratic Party will have incumbents to pressure in the midterms and probably have a larger Senate majority in 2011 regardless.
Unions equal the right to assemble and the the right to assemble equals Freedom. Support the Employee Free Choice Act. Get an EFCA bumper sticker here:
https://unionshop.aflcio.org/product1.cfm?Product_ID=1474
Unions equal the right to assemble and the right to assemble equals Freedom. Don't believe the Corporate front group Lies. Support the Employee Free Choice Act. Get an EFCA bumper sticker here:
https://unionshop.aflcio.org/product1.cfm?Product_ID=1474
The unions are restless, Mark. Private-sector union membership has been plummeting (coincidentally, along with the middle-class standard of living, wages and benefits) for fifty years and in this economic crisis, unions have hit rock-bottom. It's no longer a philosophical question: the next year or two will decide whether unions will survive or they won't.
That's why the unions put so much effort into electing Democrats in the last cycle, and why the Chamber of Commerce et al. put so much effort into defining "the secret ballot." I have no idea what benefit a "secret ballot" has in a rigged election, but I do know both groups were setting the stage for the card-check battle, and both groups won the battles they chose to fight.
So now we have Democrats elected thanks in no small part to organized labor's organizational muscle and money fighting for EFCA, and the Chamber of Commerce leading the anti-EFCA charge. The only question was the timing, and the unions and pro-worker Democratic electeds decided to start the battle as soon as possible - when Obama and the Dems are at their most popular and while the political waverers still remember the effort the unions put in to get them elected.
Last thing: is it really a "caricature" to talk about card-check being the difference between supporting working people and supporting CEOs? We've been pursuing trickle-down economics for a so long that I know it's difficult for a lot of people to think deeply about exactly who our economy should be working for.
The simple fact of the matter is that economic policies that give more wealth to the already-rich and more power to the already-powerful have got us in the situation we're in.
What's the worst-case scenario with card-check, or with letting the workers who want to join unions be able to join unions? What's going to happen? The finance industry will collapse? The credit and banking systems will lock up? Unemployment will rise to whatever level it's going to rise to this year?
Forget the inside-the-Beltway-BS and the "issue optics" - giving working Americans the union protections that will make them middle-class Americans is the best thing we can do for the economy, now and for years to come.