Obama: Talking tough on bill that has no chance of passing

The Employee Free Choice Act is a labor-designed bill that may make it easier for employees to form unions. Union publications are touting it as a correction response to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1946.

The economic changes away from an industrial, labor-intensive manufacturing society to one dominated by brains, not brawn, is the key factor union membership among the private workforce has plummeted from a post World War II high of about 30 percent--to just 8 percent today.

Unions, never known for innovation, have yet to adapt to the information age.

But labor is pretty good at running to the Democratic Party when it needs to achieve what they can't win at the bargaining table--or by organizing. It gets the Democrats to sponsor legislation favoring labor.

Obama gave a speech today in front of a big Chicago area union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council (AFSCME) Local 31. Obviously, AFSCME is not a union representing private sector works.

Said Obama:

It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when. We may have to wait for the next president to sign it, but we will pass it. We will get this thing done.

The House passed the Employee Free Choice Act on Thursday. It's chances of getting through the Senate are slim, but even if it does, President Bush has promised to veto it.

Adding some shreiking was my congresscritter, Jan Schakowsky, an Evanston Democrat:

You ain't seen nothing yet! Just wait until we have a Labor Department under President Barack Obama, an even better day is coming!

The present Department of Labor has been effective in combatting organized labor's worse enemy--union corruption.

A better day will be coming when corruption within the labor movement is far less commonplace than it is now.

And it is commonplace. Here's a story from way back, yesterday that is, here in Illinois. The former secretary of a United Mineworkers local pleaded guilty to charges that she embezzled $5,000 from the local.

Related posts:

Obama and the Laborers' Union Ed Smith

Obama and Wal-Mart

More Obama: Wife serves on board of company whose biggest customer is Wal-Mart

Cong. Schakowsky's husband gets five months in prison


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