President Obama, The Labor Movement, And The Next Four Years

With the election finally behind us, many in the labor community may have a sense of feeling that we have come back from the brink of the abyss.  While a Romney administration would surely have been a nightmare for workers, it will be interesting to see if Obama's second term will yield any big advances for the labor movement.

Answers to many of the questions that labor leaders have about the next four years depend largely on how much the Obama Administration believes it owes to unions for the success of its ground game.  In Ohio and Wisconsin, the benefit of the recent recall fights was blatantly obvious, as Team Romney was no match for Team Obama when it came to GOTV operation.

The real question for the next four years is: how will Big Labor spend whatever political capital it may have earned with the Obama Administration?  One would have to imagine that pushing the Employee Free Choice Act would have to be a high priority on the list.  Unfortunately, this is very unlikely, as Obama has shown a tendency towards Clintonian Triangulation in the past, and there is no reason to believe this will change.

So which other agenda items should labor push for in the coming months?  One thing is for sure - we better make it count.

In Solidarity,

Joseph