Labor looks to Bonoir to fix its problems

For thirty years, former Michigan Congressman David Bonoir was the go-to guy on union stuff in Washington. That didn't escape onetime presidentital candidate John Edwards, who tapped Bonoir to run his 2008 campaign.

As the Barack Obama juggernaut begins to lose steam, unions are looking to Bonoir to fix their problems while the president remains popular. As Congressional Quarterly notes, it's being done with the "tacit support" of the White House.

Bonoir is the leader of the National Labor Coordinating Committee.

More from CQ:

It was scarcely surprising that Bonior was the choice — with the White House’s tacit support — to heal the schism that opened in union ranks when seven dissenting unions split from the AFL-CIO in 2005. But it remains to be seen whether he can find a way to balance competing leadership ambitions and the differing perspectives of industrial unionists, service workers and white-collar professionals.

The idea behind the Bonior-led National Labor Coordinating Committee is to build a united front among more than 16 million union members to capitalize on a recent growth in membership and to reconfigure the traditional union model for a post-industrial, service-providing economy.

Not incidentally, a reunited labor movement might also advance an agenda that puts special emphasis on health care and stimulating the economy. Meanwhile, all of labor’s factions share the objective of passing the Employee Free Choice Act, the politically charged card-check bill that would rewrite labor relations laws to help unions add to their numbers.

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