Democrats Betray Labor: EFCA Card Check is Pronouced Dead

[Better Believe It]

Weekend Edition
May 22-24, 2009

Democrats Betray Labor
Card Check is Pronouced Dead
By DAVID MACARAY

Earlier this week it was acknowledged by labor officials and Democratic insiders that the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act), as presently written, wasn’t going to pass. While the bill may be reintroduced in a different form, the crucial “card check” component has been pronounced dead. Although labor wonks across the country were disappointed by the news, most weren’t surprised by it.

Despite all the hoopla and anticipation, skeptics had predicted long ago that this ambitious bill, which would have provided working people with far greater access to labor unions, had virtually no chance of passing. Why? Because it was too explicitly “pro-labor.”

Big Business and the Democratic Party (despite its lip service) simply couldn’t allow legislation this progressive to become law. Not for nothing has Taft-Hartley remained on the books for 62 years.

So who do we blame for the defeat? Obviously, when something as big and expensive and widely publicized as the EFCA falls on its face, somebody has to be held accountable. In truth, organized labor seems the likeliest candidate.

Not only was labor unable to speak with one voice (e.g., UNITE HERE’s battle, SEIU’s leadership scandals, Change to Win’s breakaway from the AFL-CIO, et al), but they once again allowed themselves to be sweet-talked and misled by the Democrats. Yes, labor had on board its Russ Feingolds (D-WI) and Carl Levins (D-MI), but there were too many other DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) eager to jump ship.

Of course, we’re already hearing people say, “Wait til 2010,” suggesting the Democrats will pick up enough senate seats to have those 60 votes necessary for cloture. The problem with that logic is it assumes the Democrats want card check to pass. Alas, there’s little evidence to support that assumption.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/macaray05222009.html

[salguine]

1. "Democrats Betray Labor"? THERE'S a fucking news flash.

[Voltaire]

5. I'm so tired of this country

I despair when I think that we'll ever be able to get ANYTHING right. Everything we say we are collectively is a fucking lie. And I am sick and tired of it. I like Obama, I'm a union guy, but I am not holding out hope for anything good in this country ever again. Except for the New Deal, which the GOP has effectively gutted, nothing good has EVER happened here. And not enough people know or care enough to give a damn.

VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!! Yeah....right.

Voltaire

[DrToast]

6. Oh please. Obama handed chrysler to the UAW on a silver platter.

[Touchdown]

19. The silver platter filed with Chrysler... meaning dog shit.

The UAW owns a dying corpse.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

2. Excuse my ignorance. Could someone explain the "card check" component? What it means exactly. nt

[Better Believe It]

3. Here's a link with the full text of EFCA and more information that should answer all your questions.

http://www.afl-cio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/whatis.cfm

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. Thank you. nt

[Better Believe It]

7. "the labor movement needs a more effective approach to politics"

Card Check Is Dead
By Liza Featherstone - The Big Money
May 21, 2009

Last Thursday, President Obama pronounced "card check" dead, saying that the current Employee Free Choice Act didn't have the votes to pass but that a "compromise" could work. By compromise, the president meant a version of the bill without card check, the provision obliging employers to recognize unions after a majority of workers have signed cards, rather than after an election. On the same day, Sen. Arlen Specter, newly "D"-Pa., a key swing vote, said that he, too, would support a "compromise" on EFCA: card-check-free, of course.

These twin announcements sealed what most observers had understood for a while: Card check isn't happening. The provision has always been imperfect, but its death is a sure sign that the labor movement needs a more effective approach to politics.

New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse, in a recent essay on why Americans don't protest, paraphrases United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard saying that demonstrations are less needed in the United States than in Europe "because often all that is needed is some expert lobbying in Washington to line up the support of a half-dozen senators." This approach has plainly failed with the Employee Free Choice Act. To get labor-law reform, card check or no, rather than "just sitting around and lobbying," Sandy Pope points out, "we have to talk to our members. We have to get into the streets."

Mark Brenner, a labor activist and editor of Labor Notes, agrees, observing: "The labor movement is turning its back on its own history. Every major legislative advance has come about because of street protests, civil disobedience, by our turning up the heat."

Explaining why it's important for labor to return to the organizing and protesting strategies of the past, Brenner says: "We're never going to win the inside game. Wal-Mart and Home Depot will always have more money. Our strength is that we have millions of members ... and millions more people who would like to be in a union." Winning labor-law reform will take organizing to make all those people more visible. "Why no civil disobedience in Arlen Specter's office?" Brenner asks. "Why aren't we picketing in front of every Republican's house? Why aren't we bird-dogging them? If this is most important campaign, let's act like it is."

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.reuters.com/article/bigMoney/idUS144379123120090521

[blindpig]

25. That's it, labor leadership has become scabs.

They ain't giving away nothin'. People gotta flex their muscle, be it in the streets or on the shop floor. The class war has been waged against us for far too long without any opposition, time to go on the offensive.

[madrchsod]

8. "that`s all right ma..( 'we' are only bleeding)"

sold out in 60`s,lied to for the next 20 some years,fooled in the 90`s,and stripped of what ever we have left since 2000....

we ain`t got to much blood left to give...

[ThomCat]

9. People keep making the mistake of thinking the Democratic Party

supports progressive goals. They don't. The democratic party doesn't automatically support anything except what lobbyists tell them to support. How often do we need to see proof of that before people finally learn this lesson?

Our party will only support progressive goals when massive organized pressure is put on them to somehow force them to support progressive goals.

That is when we will see support for labor.
and support for LGBT rights.
and real environmental legislation,
and food safety legislation,
and screening of imports for safety and for compliance with our domestic laws and regulations,
and support for rebuilding or public infrastructure,
and increased spending on public schools,
and maybe even a decrease in military spending someday.

Without that pressure, our politicians will betray us to rich lobbyists every time. It is not enough to vote for democrats and then think you're done because you support whatever they do. (Cheerleaders, please learn this lesson someday.) Hold them responsible for what they do, and demand that they do better.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

14. I was just having a discussion with myself

"Self, exactly how many Democrats would it take to have in the House and Senate to establish clearly insurmountable bill-passing power, causing me and anyone else to realize when they DON'T perform, that they have no interest in legislating like Democrats EXCEPT DURING A CAMPAIGN?"

[avaistheone1]

15. You forgot support for single-payer health insurance

[anonymous171]

10. WTF!? I thought that dems ,at the very least, were supposed to be pro-labor? nt

[billyoc]

20. I know! They even say it in their campaign commercials.

[Hawkowl]

11. Change we can believe in!

(Void where prohibited).

[billyoc]

21. *(Change may not be available in your area)

[cascadiance]

12. This for me shows a lack of leadership! Reid, are you listening?

America wants some form of legislation that would help labor get organized again!

Now, are there differences between what different unions and senators want? Sure! That's always the case on these sorts of legislation. But you don't basically just step back and say that these differences prevented it from being past, when you lead a majority party in the Senate!

There's many things that could have been done Mr. Reid, IF you are being honest of wanting something to pass to help labor out now.
1) Have a meeting with labor leaders and force some form of consensus for this initial bill. Say that we might revisit things being left out in another congress later that perhaps can't be passed now. Those in unions though will realize that something passed is better than nothing.
2) Meet with the DINOs and say that they need to work with the party on this issue, or they will have "consequences" for being out of step with what the party and its constituents want. Rethugs would have done this with their "moderates", and you know they would have followed that lead. Why do you think Specter initially voted against it as a Rethug?
3) When a vote threatened by cloture was critical for Rethugs (aka approval of Alito and Roberts as justice nominations), the Republican leadership in those cases threatens to change the rules to do the "nuclear option" to get their way. WHY, Mr. Reid, on important votes for your consituency, don't you do the same thing? If the Rethugs realize that they might lose cloture over this one vote, they might back off, or the DINOs might also back off too.

Why hasn't he done much or any of the above? Because in my book, I don't think he really wanted this to pass. His relationship with his lobbyists are more important than serving Nevadans' and the people of this country's interests! This pattern has happened so long with this "wimp" Mr. Reid, who I believe is a wimp *by design*!!

Mr. Reid, you don't just betray labor with this. But you continue to betray the country with the way you're leading (or not leading) the Senate!

[librechik]

13. If Guantanamo money is any indication, we need 40 new Dem Senators

to overcome the old Dem Senators.

[amborin]

16. w/o EFCA, U.S. union organizing is good as over

study after study have shown only EFCA can help (albeit only slightly) workers win the battle against union-busting corporations

sad, sad, sad

let me say this: If O is not supporting and fighting for EFCA, it might be tough to win in
2012.....he had lots of support from organized labor

[Better Believe It]

17. Next Up: Bi-partisanship to cut social security benefits. Wait, that comes after

killing both single payer and a so-called "public option" in health care reform is accomplished and after the foreclosure relief "cramdown" was voted down and the proposal to cap credit card interests rates was killed.

We're movin right along now!

So who won the election in 2008?

[QC]

18. "So who won the election in 2008?" Big Money, Inc., same as every other election.

So just close your eyes and think of the puppy!

[depakid]

22. There's not a single issue that Democrats won't betray. Not one.

That's how it earned its repuation a "the stand for nothing party," and if the Republicns hadn't gone off the deep end and imploded, Democrats would still be in the minority- whining about and voting for Republican policies.

Let's see: labor under the bus, consumer advocates under the bus, environmentalists under the bus- and soon, health care under the bus.

I wonder who they think is going to campaign for them in 2010?

[billyoc]

23. EFCA wasn't something were were ASKING for, it was something we OFFERED the Democratic Party.

A non-violent way to bring economic justice to the working people of this country.

[Touchdown]

24. The big lie was successful.

This excerpt tells it clearly...

And third, let’s not pretend that this debate had anything to do with the freedom of choice, or adherence to the Bill of Rights, or any other noble-sounding issue. Opposition to the EFCA was no more about a worker’s constitutional “right to choose” than it was about George Washington’s powdered wig.

Let’s be clear: This whole anti-EFCA drive was designed to keep the unions out. Everything else is smoke. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce didn’t spend tens of millions of dollars to promote some abstract principle involving a citizen’s right to choose; they did it to pierce the heart of organized labor.

[IndianaGreen]

26. In another morphing into Bush, Obama pronounces Card Check "Dead"

Don't forget that Obama has kept Single Payer off the health care reform table, while letting all the greedy corporations sell us another bottle of snake oil.

Card Check Is Dead

Thu May 21, 2009 10:08am EDT

By liza.featherstone - The Big Money

Last Thursday, President Obama pronounced "card check" dead, saying that the current Employee Free Choice Act didn't have the votes to pass but that a "compromise" could work. By compromise, the president meant a version of the bill without card check, the provision obliging employers to recognize unions after a majority of workers have signed cards, rather than after an election. On the same day, Sen. Arlen Specter, newly "D"-Pa., a key swing vote, said that he, too, would support a "compromise" on EFCA: card-check-free, of course.

These twin announcements sealed what most observers had understood for a while: Card check isn't happening. The provision has always been imperfect, but its death is a sure sign that the labor movement needs a more effective approach to politics.

Card check was devised as a solution to a simple yet intractable problem: Workers who want to join unions do not get a fair shake. Elections take too long, giving employers plenty of time to hire high-priced union-busting law firms, fire union sympathizers, intimidate and spy upon workers, and do whatever they can do, legally or illegally, to keep the union out. Many people now work for companies like Home Depot (HD), Rite Aid (RAD), or Wal-Mart (WMT) that have plenty of resources to wear unions down and every incentive to do so since their business models depend on underpaid, short-term labor. Specter opposes card check but does support speeding up elections, allowing workers to campaign at their work sites without retaliation, and imposing stiffer penalties for violations of organizing rights.

http://www.reuters.com/article/bigMoney/idUS144379123120090521