EFCA Round-Up: Thursday, June 11, 2009
At Pajamas Media, Jennifer Rubin questions whether Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) truly intends to bring EFCA to the Senate floor in July:
There are grounds for skepticism. After all, with health care and Supreme Court confirmation fights brewing, it seems the congressional calendar is already jammed. Yes, it is true that the newest Democratic Senator Arlen Specter has let Big Labor officials know that they won’t be “disappointed” by his vote when it comes up. But what’s in the compromise? And more importantly who’s going to tell Sens. Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and other nervous Red State Democrats that they have to walk the plank on this one?
As one Capitol Hill Republican aide told Pajamas Media: “Sounds like it might be a bit of bluster. … Still, even still, even if all of this is as Harkin claims, they still only have 59 [votes] without Franken. But if he comes in [to the Senate], they’re going to have to definitely flip Nelson or some of the other nervous Dems.”
Marathon Pundit's John Ruberry reacts to a report in today's Denver Post regarding "panicked" reactions of organized labor to Sen. Michael Bennet's more recent commentary on his "cool" stance on the bill:
I don't blame them for panicking. Officially the Coloradan is neutral, but they also must remember that workers aren't marching down the streets of Denver, Greeley, or heck, any American town demanding to join unions. And if they want to, there's a set procedure in place--secret ballot elections.
And in the Detroit News, columnist Manny Lopez relays the details of a recent phone conversation he had with Michigan AFL-CIO head Mark Gaffney:
Right to work, Gaffney told me, was purely a "political consideration" that union Democrats would never support anyway. Perhaps. It's as much a political issue as is the Employee Free Choice Act, a push by the labor movement to allow union formation with card signatures alone.
Gaffney, and plenty of United Auto Workers members I talk to, think EFCA is the perfect answer to all the Southern senators who opposed helping bankrupt General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.
It is not, however, the answer. Restricting competition or lowering the benchmarks so low that employers -- the entrepreneurs who provide jobs and build communities -- lose control of their own operations, will only guarantee further jobs lost.
