Back or front burner for labor's EFCA?
Organized labor's top priority certainly isn't a priority for Republicans in Congress, and it may not be a priority for a lot of Democrats, either.

A Jan. 2 column in the Wall Street Journal by Kimberly Strassel said the Obama Administration has indicated to union leaders it would first focus on fixing the economy. She wrote that Obama or Congressional Democrats have "no intention of jumping straight into the mother of all labor brawls."

The Employee Free Choice Act would level the playing field for union organizers by changing federal law to allow workers to simply sign a card indicating they desire union representation. Such a system would supplant existing law, which allows for employers to call for a formal election process, which can take months or years.

Unions have long maintained that such delays allow employers to coerce or threaten workers into shunning union representation - a system which has seriously weakened the ability of unions to grow. With that knowledge, the U.S. business community is ready to spend millions in a campaign to fight the Employee Free Choice Act. A majority of Senators voted for the EFCA last year, but Republicans threatened a filibuster to hold up its passage, and President Bush would have vetoed it, anyway.

That fact that the EFCA wasn't going to pass provided political cover for what Strassel called "wobbly" Democratic senators from anti-union Red states - especially those up for re-election next year - who now aren't eager to see the Employee Free Choice Act come up for a vote.

Labor leaders think those wobblies can be given a backbone on this issue, and are looking for a vote by Labor Day on the EFCA.


Plenty support for U.S. unions - poll
Sentiments in Congress may be all over the map regarding the Employee Free Choice Act.

But a Peter Hart poll released this month found that nearly four in five (78%) U.S. adults favor legislation that "would make it easier for workers to bargain with their employers."

This includes nearly half (46%) of Americans who strongly favor legislation to that end. Just 17% of adults oppose legislation making it easier for workers to bargain with their employers for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.

A majority (69%) of Americans agree that it is very or fairly important to have strong laws that give employees the freedom to make their own choice about whether to form a union in their workplace. Half (50%) of Americans say this is very important.

The poll, according to the Huffington Post, "is meant in part to demonstrate that contention over the bill is mostly limited to the halls of power in Washington; among ordinary Americans, union officials say, EFCA enjoys strong support."

Several sources indicate that labor and Democrats have been buoyed by the ineffectiveness of anti-EFCA ad campaigns funded by big business groups.