Employee Free Choice on the Early Agenda?

by Trapper John    Wed Jan 07, 2009

Perhaps the biggest question surrounding the Employee Free Choice Act has been when we can expect Congress to act on the bill. In recent weeks, there has been a current of reporting, particularly in right-leaning media, suggesting that Free Choice was being moved to the legislative back burner. But there are fresh indications that Congress and the Obama Administration (God, it feels good to type that) recognize that we can't have genuine middle-class stimulus without the wage-buoying effects of collective bargaining -- the very effects that the Employee Free Choice Act is designed to create.

Matt Cooper writes today:

There is no question that Obama favors the bill; he was one of its many co-sponsors in the Senate. But now he has to make a choice. If Obama wants the law, he can get it passed, but he’ll have to fight for it—and spend valuable political capital early in his term—when he has other priorities, like pushing health-care reform, clean-energy efforts, and an economic-stimulus measure. In 2007, the E.F.C.A. was passed by the House but was filibustered in the Senate and did not pass. This time, though Democrats enjoy a larger majority in the Senate, some in the caucus—especially new senators from conservative states, like Mark Begich of Alaska—might not stand up against a Republican filibuster.

Transition officials were divided on how aggressively and quickly Obama should move on the bill, but sources close to the campaign tell me he will push ahead. I’ve often been a critic of unions, but on this issue, I support them and think Obama is right to move forward.

(Emphasis mine.) Matt Cooper is certainly a Beltway Insider, so this is encouraging -- both the news that Obama is pushing for early action on the Act, and that a villager like Cooper supports its passage. More concrete evidence that the Act is going to receive swift consideration comes from yesterday's TAPPED:

A Democratic aide on the hill passes along the first ten bills that Majority Leader Harry Reid will put in the hopper this evening to kick off the new session of Congress, as sent by leadership to various Senate Legislative Directors. Unfortunately for us, the bills are placeholders that only contain vague statements of purpose, not specific legislative language, so we can only get a sense of the basic priorities of the Senate Democrats. Here's the countdown:

   * S.1 -- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 . . . The stimulus bill; no surprises here.

   * S.2 -- Middle Class Opportunity Act of 2009. Sound familiar? This is a retread of a bill sponsored by Senator Chuck Schumer in the last Congress that has a variety of tax reform goals; the additional descriptions in this bill include hints at union support ("ensuring workers can exercise their rights to freely choose to form a union without employer interference") and perhaps another go at the Ledbetter law ("removing barriers to fair pay for all workers").

(Emphasis added.) That sure sounds like Free Choice -- in fact, it could hardly mean anything else.  And why shouldn't an act that allows people to vindicate their right to bargain collectively be part of the stimulus wave? As Harold Meyerson writes in today's WaPo:

The one great period of broadly shared prosperity in U.S. history remains the three decades following World War II, which, anything but coincidentally, is the one period in which America had high levels of unionization. The business lobby is throwing big money into ads opposing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make it easier for workers to join unions, but one concern it has neglected to address is how the United States can again become a land of broad-based affluence with private-sector unionization at its current 7 percent level. There is no historic precedent for mass prosperity absent mass collective bargaining. The model cannot be constructed.

Happily, Barack Obama seems to have learned the right lessons from America's economic history. He knows that the stimulus package needs to be big enough to compensate for the collapse of bank lending. He knows that unemployment insurance and food stamps cannot be allowed to run out. He supports the EFCA as a way to boost Americans' incomes.

It can't come soon enough.              Original Article

Technorati Tags: Employee Free Choice Act,Ledbetter Law,Workers,American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,Middle Class Oportunity Act,Barack Obama