Steve Early on EFCA, Obama. and the Economy

Labor journalist Steve Early has a thorough examination of the Employee Free Choice Act, the
centerpiece of labor's political program on the Talking Union blog,

Thirty years ago, unions came closer to strengthening the Wagner Act than at any other time since Congress enacted labor’s “Magna Carta” in 1935. During Jimmy Carter’s first and only term, they had the benefit of big Watergate-related Congressional victories by the Democrats in 1974–and, four years later, 61 Democrats in the Senate. Yet, when a bill was introduced that would have speeded up National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections, helped fired organizers, and penalized union-busting employers, labor law reform got filibustered to death in the Senate, after tepid White House lobbying on its behalf. Three decades after that political set-back-and partly because of it–American unions now represent only 12.1 percent of the total workforce. In the National Labor Relations Act-covered private sector, union density is down to 7.5%.

Thanks to the popular backlash against our current discredited Republican administration, Congress once again changed for the better, in 2006, raising new hopes for labor law reform. This year, union members have been urged to elect even bigger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, plus a new president, so legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) can be enacted in 2009Since many in labor believe that amending the NLRA is more critical to union survival today than 30 years ago, it’s worth examining the current campaign for EFCA. ⁽¹⁾ Have the lessons of past defeats been well applied in labor’s renewed bid to strengthen the right to organize? Can the AFL-CIO and Change To Win (CTW) win on this issue when organized labor’s size and political clout has been so much diminished since the late 1970s? Even if enacted, will EFCA enable unions to overcome widespread employer resistance to collective bargaining in the U.S.?

Read the whole thing here.