In its current form, the deceptively-named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) appears mortally wounded in Congress for this legislative session. However, statements coming from EFCA pushing politicians make it sound as if this has been the plan all along.
Indeed, as Big Union Bosses have seen the defections of former EFCA supporters Arlen Specter (R-PA), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Mark Pryor (D-AR), as well as—surprisingly—Diane Feinstein (D-CA), the ability to pass the job-killing EFCA as drafted is quickly become a lost cause. However, all of these politicians have left the door open for a so-called compromise.
As we have been warning for months that there is likely to be a “compromise” introduced to make the Orwellian legislation a little more palatable to moderate Republicans and “conservative” Democrats, this should come as no surprise to our e-mail subscribers.
In fact, last week, we blogged on LaborUnionReport.com about the BNA report on Democrat aides crafting an EFCA compromise that includes a duplicitious “dual purpose” card (as in “sign here for no election or sign there for an election”).
This does appear to be one direction that EFCA proponents are taking that, in the end, is still “card check” and should be a non-starter for anyone supportive of secret-ballots.
However, that is not our main point.
According to an article sent to us over the weekend, chief EFCA enthusiasts were caught on the record stating:
“We always assumed we would have to modify it,” said a member of Democrat Congressman George Miller’s education and labor committee staff.
Over on the Senate side, where EFCA is likely stalled (in its current form) until after the 2010 mid-term elections, union-pusher Tom Harkin (D-IA) stated:
“We knew all along that this bill would be amended. It seems clear now we’ll have to look at some changes to get to the floor. But there is no question that it will still come up for debate and votes because workers deserve a share of this recovery.” [What reovery would that be, Senator?]
If they knew all along that the bill would have to be amended, why introduce it?
Well, the answer to that is easy.
Union bosses and their political puppets have spent the last two decades using half-truths and faulty data to make claims that labor relations in America is broken to cover for their own ineptitude. Unions have spent (estimated) billions to influence the nation’s electoral system to put politicians in office who owe their allegiance, not to America’s citizens, but to Big Union Bosses.
At the same time, however, union bosses knew that, unless they were unbelievably fortuitous in gaining political plunder at the polls, they would have to seek incremental changes instead of getting the whole banana. Why?
Because, unlike banana republics, Americans (and American business leaders) would not likely succumb to an overnite coup led by a socialist regime. However, in smaller doses, they might be led into a trap. And this, dear readers, is why we have been warning for so long about an EFCA compromise.
In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.
The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser’s intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When a culture’s dominant trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win over the appeasers.
Ayn Rand
[Hat-tip to Bret Jacobson]
