From Mickey Kaus, the reform-minded Democratic columnist, blogger, card-check observer:

‘Employee Free Choice’ Still on the Move! Yet another Democratic Senator, Michael Bennet of Colorado, declares “card check” unpassable. He also calls it an impediment to enacting health care reform–a potentially convenient “frame” for other wobbly Dems, Greg Sargent notes. … P.S.: At some point doesn’t the near-stampede of moderate Democrats to renounce the unions’ top agenda item cut into labor’s leverage when it comes to negotiating a compromise? Just asking! These Dems are defying labor. Are they paying a big price for it, or do they know labor needs them as much as they need labor? Lesson learned? … P.P.S.: Didn’t Robert Reich try to warn Andy Stern that this would happen? … P.P.P.S.: Or is labor angling for a pity vote–they’re about to be so humiliated, Dems will have to do something to help them? … 12:03 A.M.

That last post-post-post-script raises a serious point. If you’re organized labor and usual political allies in the Senate have spurned you on the Employee Free Choice Act, don’t you turn up the heat on them?  The argument would go:

You knew the Employee Free Choice Act was our priority, we helped get you elected, and now you bailed. We are going to withhold our support and even look at primary challengers. We might reconsider if you get behind the rest of our agenda, with no deviation. The RESPECT Act, you’ll need to cosponsor that. You know, the unionize supervisors law. Davis-Bacon, keeping adding that to every spending bill. Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 11, that’s a big one. We’ll be back with some others.

None of those bills or provisions are as much political poison as EFCA’s destruction of the secret ballot, so the members of Congress could sign off with less concern about constituent backlash.

Thus, even if organized labor is privately coming to grips with the Employee Free Choice Act being dead legislatively, they still see value in agitating for congressional action. It’s leverage.

Forecasting a possible labor agenda under an Obama Administration the WSJ outlines today that includes many familiar items — the Employee Free Choice Act — and some not so familiar, including the RESPECT Act, as well some lesser known provisions within the card check bill such as language to impose binding arbitration for first contracts. The column’s summary of the mandatory arbitration provisions is the most concise argument against the card-check bill that’s out there.

Another labor-friendly provision of the Employee Free Choice Act is mandatory arbitration. Under current law, labor and management are required to bargain in good faith but aren’t obliged to reach an agreement. Under Mr. Obama’s proposal, if the parties can’t settle on a contract within 120 days, the dispute goes to an arbitration panel which can impose a contract that is binding for two years.

 

As a practical matter, contracts typically involve dozens of provisions dealing with wages as well as seniority, grievances, overtime, transfers and promotions. Rarely is this accomplished in four months. The provision would notably shift bargaining power to unions, which would have an incentive to run out the 120-day clock and let an arbitrator impose a contract that is bound to include much of what unions demand.

Other points included in the column:

• Senator Obama’s support for the RESPECT Act. This seemingly innocuous bill would drastically amend the National Labor Relations Act to change the legal definition of a supervisor. The result would place many supervisors in the same bargaining unit as their subordinates. As clear conflict of interest;
• The Senator would bar companies from replacing striking workers; 
• Sen. Obama’s plans would also force state and local governments to recognize union leaders as the exclusive bargaining agent for first responders instead of allowing these important public servants to negotiate directly with their employers.
• Additionally, the column states that Sen. Obama is against states’ rights to pass Right to Work laws that protect employees that refuse to join a union or pay union dues.

In other related news, House Republican Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) opines in Townhall.com other plans to implement big labor’s agenda. His piece focuses on the impact of EFCA and Sen. Obama’s position on the bill. Boehner speculates that if EFCA passes “With the stroke of a pen, a time-honored right [to secret ballot union elections] would be signed away into the pages of history.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) spoke on the Senate floor yesterday about the spate of union-backed legislation being pushed in Congress, bills that would transform the dynamic U.S. labor market into the ossified, high-unemployment, government-dominated labor market of Europe. (His remarks start on page S5733).

Pending legislation in Congress sponsored by the change agents would more closely conform America’s labor and employment laws to the failed European model which has saddled the French and Germans with 30 years of higher unemployment, stagnant job growth, and lower productivity. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said workplace regulations in France are “unjust, discourage work and job creation,” and “fail to bring equal opportunity” to the middle class. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for reform of Germany’s labor regulations for the same reasons.

 At a time when leaders in France and Germany are trying to reform their workplace laws and move closer to the U.S. system, do we really want to infect our country with European-style workplace regulations that could cost middle class jobs and curtail economic growth? Do we really want to become another France?

C’est une domage, but the answer is, oui, there are many elected officials who do want to turn the United States into France…save for the nuclear power.

Hatch ticks off the horrible pieces of legislation one-by-one, the anti-democratic Employee Free Choice Act; the misnamed RESPECT ACT, which would reclassify supervisors to expand union ranks; and the wrench-in-the-works Working Families Flexibility Act, which would let employees dictate the terms of their workweek or file government complaints if denied. Among others…

For centuries, people from all over the world have been drawn to the United States for economic opportunity. While the unions and some in Congress believe that European-style labor law is what is best for workers, leaders in France and Germany know better. They understand that regulatory economic rigidities that hold out the false hope of job security often limits workers’ options for finding better opportunities, makes it harder for the unemployed to find work, and discourages entrepreneurs from creating new middle class jobs. Congress cannot mandate that employers create jobs, stay in business, or even that they do not conduct business elsewhere. But in the name of change, ostensibly to help the middle class, Congress can mandate the types of harmful employment regulations that will reduce or even eliminate middle class jobs in the United States.

 “Europeanization” of U.S. labor and employment laws is not the type of change the middle class really needs.

D’accord.

And many thanks to Senator Hatch for painting the big picture so accurately.