Senator Thomas Carper (D. Del.) announced Thursday that he would not support the Employee Free Choice Act (the “EFCA”) if the bill's card-check provision remained, stating that “the secret ballot method remains the fairest way to determine whether the employees in a workplace truly want to be represented by a union.”  Although Senator Carper indicated his view that the bill should be debated on the floor of the Senate, he joins the growing list of Democrats who have come out against the EFCA in its current form.

In a statement that some have called a death blow to the Employee Free Choice Act (the “EFCA”), Senator Dianne Feinstein (D. Ca.) announced Friday that she would not support the EFCA as written.  Senator Feinstein, a sponsor of the bill in 2007, was expected to provide a crucial vote toward unions’ attempts to garner the 60 votes needed to overcome an expected Republican filibuster.  As this announcement comes on the heels of Senator Specter’s (R. Pa.) similar declaration last Tuesday, the EFCA now appears to have little chance of crossing the 60-vote threshold in the near future, at least in its current form.

Unions and pro-EFCA groups are unlikely to give up the fight for the current legislation, as evidenced by the barrage of calls that jammed Sen. Specter’s phone lines last week with urges for him to reconsider.  Nevertheless, advocates and legislators on both side of the EFCA debate will likely reach toward compromise in the coming months.  Sen. Feinstein indicated that she might endorse compromise legislation, saying, “I have thought for some time that the way to approach this issue is by trying to see if there can’t be a compromise between the business community, the agriculture community and labor.”

Florida, Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, and Utah have all introduced proposed amendments to their respective state constitutions to preserve the right of workers to designate their representatives through secret-ballot elections.  The Utah proposal has passed both houses of the state legislature and will become a constitutional amendment if approved by a majority of voters in the 2010 general election.  The measures in the other four states have yet to pass through the state legislatures.

This initiative has been championed by Save Our Secret Ballots, a business-backed organization that proposes the following 48-word amendment be added to state constitutions: “To preserve and protect the fundamental right of individuals to vote by secret ballot, where local, state, or federal law requires elections for public office or ballot measures, or requires designations or authorizations for employee representation, the right of individuals to vote by secret ballot shall be guaranteed.”  This initiative seeks to safeguard the right to secret-ballot elections from the Employee Free Choice Act (“the EFCA”), federal legislation that, if passed, would effectively eliminate the secret ballot election.

However, many scholars argue that state laws, even state constitutional amendments, would be preempted by the EFCA because the U.S. Constitution makes federal law the “supreme Law of the Land.”  Others contend that the state measures could survive a preemption challenge because they reflect deeply rooted state interests.

The AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work, and Change to Win are unveiling a new advertisement campaign entitled “Faces of the Employee Free Choice Act.”  The Campaign was kicked off Tuesday, in an event on Capital Hill in which workers and legislators were joined by actors Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, and Richard Schiff from the television show, The West Wing.  According to Schiff, the actors were present to provide “celebrity lubrication” for the event.  The new campaign promotes the EFCA through the faces and stories of individual workers and will feature 50-foot tall building banners displayed throughout Washington D.C. and will have billboard trucks drive around legislators’ home offices during this month’s Congressional recess.  Union spokespeople have said they are not sure how long the EFCA banners will hang from D.C. buildings.

In a speech Tuesday on the Senate floor, Senator Arlen Specter (R. Pa.) announced that he would not support the Employee Free Choice Act (the “EFCA”). Senator Specter supported the EFCA when it was introduced in the Senate in 2007 and represented a pivotal vote in unions’ hopes of obtaining the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and avoid another Senate filibuster.

Calling the secret ballot “the cornerstone of how contests are decided in a Democratic society,” Senator Specter indicated that he opposes the bill’s so-called card-check provision, which would functionally eliminate the secret-ballot election from union organizing campaigns. Specter also spoke out against the EFCA’s binding arbitration provision because it might force employers into a contract that they cannot live with. Specter did, however, state that he would reconsider his vote when the economy improves.

Senator Specter's announcement deals a heavy blow to unions and supporters of the EFCA.  In 2007, an identical version of the bill died on the Senate floor, receiving 51 of the 60 votes needed to end debate and force a final vote. The votes were cast along party lines, with Senator Specter providing the bill’s sole Republican support. This time around, Democrats have gained seats in the Senate, but would still need Republican support to garner 60 votes and avoid a Republican filibuster. Unless Senator Specter reverses his stance on the EFCA, the bill’s chances of passing through the Senate as-written are now significantly lower.

An alternative to the Employee Free Choice Act (the “EFCA”), which lacks the EFCA’s controversial card-check provision, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak. The “National Labor Relations Modernization Act” (H.R. 1355), with minor differences, mirrors the EFCA’s provisions for increased penalties for unfair labor practices as well as for supplying mediation and binding arbitration procedures to insure an initial collective bargaining agreement is reached. However, this alternative legislation does not contain the EFCA’s card-check provision, which would functionally eliminate the secret-ballot election. Instead, during the campaign leading up to a secret-ballot election, when an employer campaigns against the union by holding employee meetings, making announcements, displaying signs, or distributing literature, this bill would require the employer to give the union equal access to its employees.

Read the text of the “National Labor Relations Modernization Act.”

The Employee Free Choice Act was introduced in Congress Tuesday, as its key supporters in the Senate are beginning to express doubt. The Wall Street Journal lists Senators Blanche Lincoln (D. Ark.), Mark Pryor (D. Ark.), Mary Landrieu (D. La.), and Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) as among at least six senators who have backed off their previous support of the proposal, saying they are now either opposed to or unsure about the bill. These splits among Democrats underscore how difficult it will be for the Employee Free Choice Act, in its current form, to garner the 60 votes needed to avoid another Senate filibuster.

Read the Wall Street Journal article, “Labor Bill Faces Threat in Senate.”

One of Mickey Kaus' readers trashes SEIU chief Andy Stern's underwhelming defense of "card check" in a bloggingheads.tv discussion with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich:

His substantive problem is that he assumes the conclusion, which is that workers need and want unions. Anything that interferes with that is therefore by definition wrong and is contrary to their will or at least to their best interests. If workers vote a union down it must be because they were intimidated, because a negative vote like that would be like a man voting against eating. It would be unnatural and open to suspicion. Stern could not stand up to a good interviewer for five minutes. Even Reich knew he was not responding to the question and was unconvincing - which is saying plenty.

One of the good things about bloggingheads is that if you can't make your case there you can't make it anywhere. You have the time, you have a non-disrespectful, non-cross-examining interlocutor, you're in familiar surroundings and don't have distractions.

Kaus, a frequent critic of EFCA, continues:

In the process Stern dances around the issue of taking away the secret ballot, saying the issue is "whose choice about how to form the organization is this, the employers or the workers." No, the issue is how do you determine what the workers' choice is. If Stern wants to have a secret ballot about whether to have a secret ballot, then he'd be amending the labor law to give workers the choice he says he wants to give them. (Maybe that's not a bad compromise.) ...

Additional sources comment further.  Powerline blog notes how unimpressed even a sympathetic Reich is, while questioning his argument as well:

Recognizing the futility of Stern's argument, Reich relies on the assumption that employer coercion is rampant, an assumption he fails to support. In any case, such coercion is unlawful and an appartus, the National Labor Relations Board, exists to enforce the prohibition. If the NLRB is inadequate under current law, the answer (as Reich at one point seems to recognize) is to beef it up. And Reich simply ignores the obvious prospect that unions will use coercion to obtain card signatures.

Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) on the floor of Congress last year, urging the passage of EFCA:

Today's Wall Street Journal features an Op-Ed by law professor Richard Epstein which argues that both the card-check and mandatory arbitration provisions of EFCA are unconstitutional. 

Surely, Professor Epstein's theory on free speech will be tested if card-check remains an element of the legislation, but we believe it will face an uphill climb.  To be certain, EFCA is designed to allow unions to curtail, even eliminate, the ability of employees to hear dissenting voices during union organizing efforts.  The courts are likely, however, to conclude that: (1) it is the union -- not a government actor -- who is curtailing the employer's ability to speak; and (2) employers still retain the right -- albeit at the peril of more significant penalties for improper speech -- to talk to employees about unions at any time regardless of whether they are aware organizing is going on.

Professor Epstein's analysis of EFCA's interest arbitration provisions are far more compelling in our opinion.  Various provisions of the Constitution, including the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, present challenges for EFCA's scheme to allow government arbitrators to impose contract terms upon private parties.  A portion of Epstein's astute view:

The government-chosen panel could well impose terms that might cripple the firm competitively. Consider that the takings clause surely prevents the government from forcing any person to buy real estate for twice its market value from a seller. That same principle applies to this labor law: No government should be able to force a firm to hire labor at $50 per hour when the company is not willing to pay half that much.

Worse, the EFCA also permits the government arbitrator to strip the employer of all its standard management prerogatives on everything from subcontracting out to promotion policy. By flatly denying the employer any option to walk away, mandatory arbitration under the EFCA runs smack into the takings clause.

We echo the Professor's conclusion, and hope that his theories needn't ever be tested in a court of law.

President-Elect Obama today introduced Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) as his nominee for Secretary of Labor.  Ms. Solis, a Director of the pro-union lobbying group, American Rights at Work, is perhaps not the biggest or most obvious name we have seen floated about in recent speculation.  She is, however, a longtime, unapologetic friend of labor.  Her father was a Teamsters shop steward, and conservative website Discover The Networks.org reports over 60 percent of her PAC campaign contributions came from organized labor.  She enjoys a 97 percent approval rating from the AFL-CIO.

And organized labor has been largely supportive of the choice.  The AFL-CIO's John Sweeney told the New York Times that he was "thrilled" with her selection.    Not surprisingly, her colleagues from American Rights at Work were similarly effusive, even as ARW Executive Director David Bonior was long suspected to be on the President-Elect's short list.  SEIU's Andy Stern celebrated her career in today's Washington Post.

The language showing up in report after report after report is that Rep. Solis is an ardent proponent of the Employee Free Choice Act.  And there is little doubt that she is.

But that makes this passage from her official House of Representatives webpage that much more puzzling:

Defending Workers’ Rights to Organize
I am a strong supporter of workers' rights and cosponsored the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800). This vital legislation strengthens the right to organize and opposes any effort to dismantle the 40-hour work week and the overtime requirements provided under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The new Democratic majority in the House successfully passed this critical piece of legislation and it is pending consideration in the U.S. Senate.

This characterization of EFCA is laregely inconsistent with the actual text of the bill, which says nothing about employee work-weeks, overtime or the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Curious.

Voices of dissent on EFCA seem to be emerging daily now, as substantial Democrat figures express concerns about the potential impact of the legislation.  The latest... Reverend Al Sharpton, who took time during a radio program earlier today to discuss the coercive nature of EFCA's card-check and arbitration provisions, and their possible effect on minority-owned small business.  Featured during the discussion were NAN Executive Director Charlie King, and businessman Sylvester Smith (of Senator Blanche Lincoln's home state of Arkansas):

Al Sharpton:Yeah, the outsourcing, well I’m all for, and as well for those who don’t believe in the right to organizing, clearly I’m for any legislation to give any state the right to organize, but I’m talking about specifically where workers are not protected from coercion, in terms of these card-checks that you talk about, and as arbitration because explain, Charlie King, to me the whole question that you raised, if you have a federal arbitrator who says that this is the deal, even when the union only established out of card-check, is the deal for two years, and there’s nothing you can do about it, I mean, a lot of the business that we afford for the African American community to get contracts and sub contracts and all. They could face some very serious problems here.

Charlie:They could face incredible problems with it. Number one, it divides small businesses so that the employer and the employee can’t even really talk about what this contract is, and the second piece of it, going back again to the secret ballot is, and Sylvesters exactly right, is that the civil rights movement was predicated on the right to be able to go in and say what you honestly believe without fear of reprisal. That’s why we have the secret ballot in electing our president, our elected officials, and it’s a critical component of what we’ve fought for.

Al Sharpton: So let me get this very clear because I’m going to have a debate on this, we’re going to really get into this as we get toward the inauguration, but you’re not against organizing unions, you’re not saying that workers don’t need unions but we’re saying that these two items are going too far. That’s your position, Sylvester.

Sylvester:Yes sir.

Al Sharpton:That’s mine, and I think that we need to debate it and be real clear about it as this campaign is launched, we’ll do it starting next week. Thank you, Sylvester, we’re going to kick off and we’re going to have you tell your legislatures how you feel about it one way or another. You know how I am. We keep it real. That’s my position. Let’s see what yours is. We’ll take a break. We’ll be right back. Keeping it real. Al Sharpton, right after this.

Coverage and commentary abound at National Review Online, Pajamas Media, and the K. Ryan James Blog.

In efforts to read the Senatorial tea leaves regarding a potential 2009 cloture vote on EFCA, many people start with the party-line numbers, presuming that the Democratic caucus will stand together in favor of cloture and EFCA.  We have suggested before that perhaps there might be some dissenting voices, given past conduct and comment.  As per the AP and WXVT Channel 15 News, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) has recently expressed her doubts about EFCA again:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Sen. Blanche Lincoln says she doesn't think federal legislation that would allow labor organizations to unionize workplaces without secret-ballot elections is necessary. But in an interview with The Associated Press today, Lincoln gave herself room to support the measure if it's brought up later.

Business and labor groups are pressuring the Democratic senator from Arkansas for support either way. Tim Griffin, a potential challenger to the senator's 2010 re-election bid, has said her stand could be an issue in the race.

Might the Democrats be back to 57 or 58 cloture votes after all?  Hard to say.  Lincoln neglected to co-sponsor the bill and appeared similarly tentative in 2007.  In the end, however, she voted for cloture.  She may be positioning herself to drive a compromise movement.  She may simply be waiting out the Minnesota recount results, developments in the economy, and the action of the incoming President before committing.  She remains an intriguing personality to watch as EFCA's prospects for 2009 unfold further.

Hat Tip: Shopfloor.org (includes more thorough coverage of AP interview)

In today's DC Examiner, Bret Jacobson weighs in on a recent Gallup release, "Americans remain broadly supportive of unions":

But beyond a simple approval rating, these recent Gallup figures have huge implications for the coming debate over labor law reform and whether to pass the grossly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act. EFCA, which would effectively end secret ballots in workplace union elections and see government-imposed arbitration set contracts for private employers, is the unions’ top political priority. It’s a one-bill union bailout.

Unfortunately for union bosses, the Gallup union-approval numbers show that only one-third of Americans want unions to have more influence. That means two-thirds want unions to maintain or reduce their current level of power in society. Notably, independents show a slight preference for less union influence, rather than more.

Dueling polls from labor and business interests aside, the well-respected Gallup poll delivers no real mandate to hand union officials more power. That means voters aren’t asking for EFCA. Congress shouldn’t, either.

We have noted a number of times, most recently this past weekend, that organized labor's agenda for 2009 extends far beyond EFCA.  Human Events provides a great, concise summary of the additional items management must follow closely:

1. Employee Free Choice Act
In addition to the notorious “card-check” provision that strips union members of their right to a secret ballot, this bill also provides for increased penalties for employers who commit allegedly unfair labor practices. These increased penalties include treble damages and civil penalties of up to $20,000.

2. Repeal of Section 14(b) of Taft-Hartley
Repeal of this section 14 of the Taft-Hartley Act would take from states the right to enact right-to-work laws.

3. Family Medical Leave Act expansion
Bills sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.) in the last Congress proposed creation of an insurance system to provide for paid family medical leave and an expansion of the employers covered by the act.

4. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
This proposal is a response to the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. decision, in which the Supreme Court said that the 180-day statute of limitations for equal pay lawsuits begins on the date the pay was agreed to. The Lilly Ledbetter Act would re-start the statute of limitations each time that a paycheck was received.

5. Minimum Wage Hike
Barack Obama’s website promises to “raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011.”

6. Patriot Employer Act
This bill imposes tax increases on companies that have major operations outside the U.S. and tax hikes on those don’t agree to “labor neutrality,” card check, etc.

7. Government unions
Barack Obama promised during the campaign that he would fight for collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration workers. Big Labor will also seek the forced unionization of police, firefighters, and EMTs by federal fiat -- overturning the laws of more than two dozen states.

8. Union Financial Disclosure
Drastically revise the Office of Labor-Management Standards’ Form LM-2 that has embarrassed and caused legal problems for union bosses by forcing them to reveal their salaries and spending.

9. National Labor Relations Board
Ram through a pro-union-appointee to the NLRB and add more labor advocates to the board. Right now, of the five seats, three are vacant.

10. Overturn Bush orders
Immediate revocation of Bush executive order on Beck rights notices and Bush executive order prohibitions on use of discriminatory union-only Project Labor Agreements in federal contracting.

ShopFloor.org adds a reminder about Davis-Bacon wage mandates, outlined in this Heritage Foundation piece.

The Los Angeles Times is running what it bills as President-Elect Obama's first newspaper interview since the election.  Following some questions about recently arrested Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D), the President-Elect answered the following regarding EFCA:

Q: On card-check protection [which would make it easier for unions to organize], we've heard that there might be a delay on that, or it might not be an immediate priority? Also, on NAFTA, we've heard that you might support maybe a study and then a report, instead of a wholesale reworking of the agreement right away?

O: Well look, my economic team is reviewing these issues. You know, I've consistently said on trade issues that I want environmental and labor provisions that are enforceable in those trade agreements.

But I also have said that I believe in free trade and don't think that we can draw a moat around the American economy. I think that would be a mistake.

When it comes to unions, I have consistently said that I want to strengthen the union movement in this country and put an end to the kinds of barriers and roadblocks that are in the way of workers legitimately coming together in order to form a union and bargain collectively.

My economic team is going to put together a package on trade and on worker issues that will be presented to me. I don't want to anticipate right now what sequences will be on these issues.

Interesting interview in WSJ this weekend with SEIU President, Andy Stern.  Discussing organized labor's priorities, EFCA was far from the first thing on Mr. Stern's lengthy list:

"We just won an election. It's no secret." By "we," Andy Stern means "American workers." He also means Big Labor. Speaking on behalf of the fastest growing trade group in America, the Service Employees International Union -- and as one of labor's most powerful figures today -- Mr. Stern sets this simple bar for the Obama presidency: "I expect nothing less than what he said he was going to do, and we should hold him accountable."

From his perspective -- atop SEIU's Washington headquarters, which offers an enviable view of the National Cathedral -- the first part is straightforward: "Massive investment" in a stimulus for the economy, the car industry, deficit-ridden states and infrastructure. Then universal health care, an issue on which the SEIU boss helped push the Democratic consensus leftward, and "tax cuts for the middle class" (and hikes for the upper bracketed). At the end of his list, Mr. Stern puts something particularly dear to unions: Quick adoption of the Employee Free Choice Act, commonly known as "card check," which would end secret ballots in union elections.

The bit about accountability is no idle warning. Organized labor put up some $450 million to get Democrats elected. The SEIU accounted for $85 million of that, making Mr. Stern's union the single biggest contributor to either party in this election cycle. And just in case, the SEIU set aside an additional $10 million fund to get people unelected if need be. "We would like to make sure people appreciate that we take them at their word and when they don't live up to their word there should be consequences," he says.

Two extremely notable things jump out from this piece: 

(1)  The Union agenda for President-Elect Obama extends far beyond the card-check issue into public works, government contracting, Davis-Bacon, tax policy and industry bail-outs.  Mr. Stern, with an ample remaining war chest, is not content with 58-59 votes in the Senate, and appears intent on solidifying and expanding that base in the 2010 elections if necessary.

(2)  There may, may -- may -- be some realization in some areas of organized labor that EFCA, as currently drafted, may have to wait a little bit -- at least beyond the first 100 hours or so.  Whether that may open the door to some form of compromise proposals or allows time for more thoughtful analysis of potential labor law reform is worth watching closely.

Incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) won handily in Georgia's run-off election, besting challenger Jim Martins (D) by an approximate margin of 15 percent.  Today's NY Times:

With 96 percent of the state’s precincts reporting in the runoff election, Mr. Chambliss had 57.5 percent of the vote, and his Democratic challenger, Jim Martin, 42.5 percent. The margin was far greater than the three percentage points that separated the two men in the Nov. 4 election, when neither won the required 50 percent. Many of the Democrats who turned out last month in enthusiastic support of Barack Obama apparently did not show up at the polls on Tuesday.

Notably, neither did Senator Obama show up.  Many Democrats saw Georgia's run-off as an opportunity to pick up a 59th vote in the Senate.  As a result, in the past few weeks, former President Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and rapper Ludacris turned out to campaign for Mr. Martin.  Yet the President-Elect simply recorded a robo-call.  Perhaps he didn't appreciate the significance of gaining one more step toward breaking the moderating impact of the filibuster. as did many Georgia voters:

Democratic voters said they had seen Mr. Martin’s campaign as an opportunity to support President-elect Obama. “I want the Democrats to not have to deal with a filibuster,” said Charles Bedell, a social worker in Atlanta who supported Mr. Martin. “It’s important to me to have a Democratic senator.”

Or.......perhaps he did, and stayed clear of the state anyway.  Intriguing tea-leaves, indeed.

In any event, before speculating about the voting conduct of folks like Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) or Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) on any particular issue, the presumptive tally is now 58 votes in the Democratic Caucus, and 41 for the GOP.

The occupant of the final seat will be determined by the conclusion of the proceedings in Minnesota.  By this Friday, it is expected that all of the votes cast will have been recounted.  Currently, challenger Al Franken (D) claims to be leading by 22 votes.  Senator Coleman's (R) campaign, the Secretary of State and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, on the other hand, all report that Coleman leads by 303 votes.  Some 6,000 challenged ballots remain to be addressed, and the Franken campaign has already threatened to litigate and/or submit the dispute to the Senate for resolution.  This could take a while.....

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) points to an interesting opinion piece in this past weekend's Fort Wayne (IN) News-Sentinel.  Columnist Kevin Leininger chronicles the card check experiences of teenage grocery workers approached by UFCW organizers in Indiana:

Liane Carroll and her son, John, who just turned 18 this week, know but wish they didn't. And they're not alone.

“(John's) a minor and can't even open a bank account on his own. But the union said that if he didn't sign, he'd be charged 10 hours of his salary as an initiation fee. There was no vote, and parents were never told. I'm afraid a lot of parents with minor kids working for Scott's weren't aware of the pressure being put on their kids. Unions have their time and place, but is this legal?”

*  *  *

“I love Scott's, but I'm probably going to quit because of this,” said Rebecca Coffelt, 18, a student at Elmhurst High School. “I'm not anti-union, but I didn't like the way they came across. They were always harassing me. I didn't really want to sign, but I was trying to control my temper and help customers. I was more worried about customers yelling at me (than signing the union card.)”

“I signed, too, because they kept telling me I had to sign and that the union was already approved. We were told we'd have a vote, but we never did. It's really irritating,” agreed Tara Groves, 16, a student at Northrop High School.

Groves, Coffelt and John Carroll said they doubt the union would have won a secret vote among store employees - if one had been held, that is.

Their stories are reminiscent of Danielle Cookson's experiences:

These are but a few stories, and do not prove that under EFCA all union organizers would seek to exert pressure on more vulnerable younger workers in workplaces to achieve their goals.  But certainly the secret ballot's protection from this type of undue influence by either a union or an employer provides a more reliable indication of the workers' feelings about union representation.

On this past weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" (Nov. 30), a panel fairly favorable to the President-Elect weighed in on the anticipated partisan dynamic in Washington next year.  In the following discussion, NBC's Mark Whitaker and the Washington Post's David Ignatius, proposed that a President Obama might push back on the level of urgency afforded organized labor's "number one priority":

Mr. WHITAKER: I think that Obama has to worry as much about the far left as he does about the far right. But, look, you know, I think that it could be a plus for him in some ways because I think they are going to give him what you might call Sister Souljah moments, when he can stand up to them.

MATTHEWS: Right.

Mr. WHITAKER: I've been talking to some veterans of those early Clinton wars who think that particularly this issue--the card check push by the labor unions to change the rules on organizing could be a moment for him, either by delaying that, standing up to the unions, of positioning himself more in the middle and making it harder for the far right to position him the way they tried to during the campaign. It's a predictable...

MATTHEWS: You see that, David?

Mr. IGNATIUS: This is where the economic crisis, you know, ends up being crucial because people are angry. The country's furious, and a lot of these really divisive issues, I think, will come from the left, not from the right, and they'll come from unions, from working people who are enraged at bailouts for big banks and wealthy executives, and the pressure on Obama to check some of what he'd like to do on the economy, I think's going to be very strong from angry people.

This commentary reflects what others have recently said about conflicting priorities during trying economic times.  It is also consistent with the frustration being expressed (not least of all from a potential nominee, David Bonior) that President-Elect Obama has not named his prospective Secretary of Labor, while trotting out the rest of his economic team.  Still to be fair, these assumptions also directly contradict the President-Elect's past expressions of loyalty to organized labor.

We continue to hope that any efforts at labor law reform in the next administration are approached with an appropriate level of sincerity, sobriety and intelligent focus on policy -- all mostly missing from the push to pass EFCA during the last several years.