Card Check Clears House
It's a small step towards a modest goal, but nonetheless important: the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Employee Free Choice Act by a margin of 241-185 today, with 13 Republicans joining all but two Democrats to pass the measure.
The bill will probably get filibustered to death in the Senate, and Bush has promised to veto it, but still, House passage represents an opportunity to start reversing decades of never-accurate and certainly-anachronistic conservative propaganda about the right to organize unions.
Usually referred to as "Card Check," what the bill provides is that when a majority of workers sign verifiable "cards" indicating a desire to organize a union, employers must recognizing that union, without going through the vastly expensive, complicated, and employer-tilted process for an official National Labor Relations Board election. It essentially restores the "majority-rules" principle for collective bargaining that has been eroded so dramatically in recent years.
I'm proud that virtually all Democrats, including, BTW, the DLC, have supported this legislation, and its passage and short-term demise will help illustrate the need for continued Democratic control of Congress, and a Democratic president in 2008.
This type of legislation is particularly significant for those Democrats who haven't completely succumbed to despair over economic globalization. Vibrant, growing unions are essential to the progressive goal of a national economic policy aimed at shaping economic change in the common, national interest. Making the EFCA the law of the land is a minimal first step in that direction.
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