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Card Check Is Dead Unions are surprisingly bad at politics.
By Liza Featherstone Posted Thursday, May 21, 2009 - 11:18am
Last Thursday, President Obama pronounced "card check" dead, saying that the current Employee Free Choice Act didn't have the votes to pass but that a "compromise" could work. By compromise, the president meant a version of the bill without card check, the provision obliging employers to recognize unions after a majority of workers have signed cards, rather than after an election. On the same day, Sen. Arlen Specter, newly "D"-Pa., a key swing vote, said that he, too, would support a "compromise" on EFCA: card-check-free, of course.
These twin announcements sealed what most observers had understood for a while: Card check isn't happening. The provision has always been imperfect, but its death is a sure sign that the labor movement needs a more effective approach to politics.
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