A labor-union problem looms for Obama
Unions want the president-elect to enact rules to make it easier to unionize workplaces. But doing so could alienate business at a crucial time for the economy.
Reporting from Minneapolis — Two months before Barack Obama is to be sworn in as president, opening salvos are being launched over what could become one of the thorniest issues his administration will face next year.
Organized labor, which spent more than $80 million to put Democrats in the White House and Congress, wants Obama to deliver on its priority: new rules to make it easier to unionize workplaces.
A union-backed organization founded by one of Obama's economic advisors plans to start a national ad campaign today calling for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Obama and his vice president-elect, Joe Biden, embraced the measure in the Senate last year and on the campaign trail this year, particularly in front of union audiences. (The bill passed the House last year, but in the Senate, Republicans succeeded in blocking it because Democrats lacked the 60 votes necessary to cut off debate.)
But if the president-elect pushes for the legislation, he risks alienating business -- which also contributed heavily to his campaign and his party and will be crucial to his efforts to fix the economy and overhaul the healthcare system.
The bill would take from employers the right to decide between accepting workers' signed union cards or demanding a secret ballot on unionization. Instead, a workplace could unionize if labor persuaded a majority of employees to sign cards -- without all employees voting.
"President-elect Obama needs to think about how much political capital he wants to put behind this," said Glenn Spencer, a Chamber of Commerce executive who is leading the fight to kill the measure. If it is passed in Obama's first 100 days, Spencer said, it is "going to look like a special-interest payback."
The chamber stayed out of the presidential race but still spent $35 million on the election, much of it to try to keep Democrats from attaining the 60 Senate seats needed to block filibusters.
Organized labor's influence has waned from the early 1950s, its height, when it represented about a third of the workforce. Now it represents about an eighth.
Paul Booth, a top official in the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, is quick to say that congressional leaders will decide when to move the bill. But he has his view: "Sooner the better. I'm quite anxious to have it come up."
