The Employee Free Choice Act: An Obituary

Although I'm sure someone else has probably said it already, let me make this important declaration:

The Employee Free Choice Act is dead.

Deceased.

Kicked the Bucket.

Bought the Farm.

And with it, the hope for reviving the mainstream labor movement.

And who do we have to blame for the death of the most treasured piece of pro-labor legislation in the last sixty years? The pro-corporation, anti-worker fat cats? The Republicans?

Nope.

We have ourselves to blame. Allow me to explain:

For decades, the labor movement has continued to suck at the tit of a Democratic Party that has had a bosom full of poison since the party bosses managed to exchange Harry "the puppet" Truman for Henry "the real deal" Wallace in 1944.

For many years, we were able to survive by inoculating ourselves by investing dues money from the expanding membership. But with the declining membership and burdensome pensions that most unions have no real plan to pay for, the poison will finally begin to kill us, unless we begin to ween ourselves off of it immediately.

When we keep returning to the Democratic Party every election cycle like a prostitute to an abusive pimp(I apologize for the imagery, but it is a good description of the relationship between labor and the Democratic Party), we are extending the cycle that has brought us nothing in the manner of actual progress for the American working class. Every other November, the party puts(pimps) us out on the corner to attract voters(johns), and despite all our whining and complaining, what do we do? We put on our stilettos and fake mink coat and take to the streets.

The only way the labor movement will ever make a comeback in the hearts and minds of the workers is if we publicly cut the cord with the Democratic Party and begin to use our numbers to affect individual races that benefit us. No more dumping millions of dollars into the DNC, just so they can use it to promote the likes of Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson.

Let's go find us a few more candidates like Bernie Sanders, and let these anti-worker Democrats fend for themselves. After all that's exactly what they've done for us, isn't it?

Little Rock A Line In The Sand?

Well, it finally happened.

The leaders of the labor movement seem to have finally had enough of the carrot on a stick from the Democratic Party. Like most of the labor movement, my sentiment is - What took you so long? Perhaps next week, they'll come out against the Taft-Hartley Act as well.

And what, might you ask, finally prompted union leaders to stop being lap dogs to the Democratic Party?

Was it NAFTA, Failure to support the Employee Free Choice Act, Single-Payer or the Public Option?

None of the Above.

Turns out, all it took for labor to draw a line in the sand was a Democratic primary race in Arkansas. I hope the AFL-CIO and the SEIU make good on their promise not to back Lincoln either financially, or with field staff for the general election. Lincoln is not a friend of labor. She does not support EFCA, did not support the Public Option, and supports free trade agreements that are detrimental to American workers.

Here's some fun stuff on the growing feud between the White House and the house of labor:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/09/blanche-lincoln-win-spark_n_605443.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38343.html

Until the labor movement builds a political movement of its own and stops diverting resources to a Democratic Party that rarely reciprocates, we will continue to spins our wheels while we go nowhere.