Tone of card-check support shifts (labor spent $450 million on election efforts)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/nov/30/tone-card-check-support-shifts/

Key adviser won’t commit to Obama’s signing bill despite campaign promises

Members of the Service Employees International Union join Barack Obama supporters at a rally in Las Vegas in January. SEIU, the nation’s largest labor organization, has pledged a $10 million campaign to press Obama and Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act soon after Inauguration Day.

By Michael Mishak

Sun, Nov 30, 2008 (2 a.m.)

When Barack Obama stumped in Las Vegas union halls throughout the presidential campaign, he mentioned, almost without fail, his support for an obscure piece of legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize.

The Illinois senator pledged to sign the bill, dubbed the Employee Free Choice Act, and Big Labor pledged to elect him.

But now, after spending a collective $450 million on election efforts and playing a key role in a number of battleground states, labor leaders may have to wait for their No. 1 priority — the card-check bill. Lawmakers and the incoming Obama administration have signaled that other matters, chiefly the economy and universal health care, will dominate the president-elect’s first 100 days.

Although Obama pledged to sign the bill into law during the campaign, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, in a meeting of chief executives and business leaders this month, declined to say whether the White House would support the legislation.

The reason is clear: The new law could be the most consequential social and economic policy shift since President Reagan reshaped the country by slashing taxes and regulation and crushing unions.

The law would allow workers to form a union by signing cards instead of voting in a secret-ballot election, stiffen penalties for employers who commit unfair labor practices during organizing drives and impose binding arbitration in bargaining cases in which the sides cannot agree. Unions argue that those changes will level a playing field that has tilted toward business at the expense of labor for decades.

FULL story at link.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. I have not been disappointed in Obama until this....

[whistler162]

2. Jupiter jump......

how about we have the President sworn in, a bill passed by both the House and Senate, and then vetoed by the President before going ballistic!

[pscot]

3. This would send a clear signal

that Obama can't be trusted. If that idea gains currency, the honeymoon will end i a hurry.