The battle over EFCA has become less a battle about EFCA, and more a proxy battle in a larger conflict about political sway, public opinion, and economic ideology.

In the Huffington Post on Friday, third-generation union organizer Mike Elk asked “If EFCA is DOA, Why is the Chamber Still Lobbying Against It?”  He wrote:

“For months now in Washington, it has been known that the Employee Free Choice Act won’t ever see a vote. However, this hasn’t stopped the Chamber of Commerce to continue flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists against a dead bill.

He continues by goading the them:

“[I]t’s important that we not give up the Employee Free Choice Act. If we don’t keep fighting, Big Business will just start pushing more aggressive assaults on labor and weaken the political position of labor. Remember the best defense is always a strong offense.”

I find it a wee bit ironic that while he is crying fowl about the Chamber not laying down their swords. Even after EFCA died, labor leaders are continuing to harp on EFCA weekly, acting as if indeed EFCA were not DOA.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and Director of Organizing at the AFL-CIO, Stewart Acuff have called for its passage, among others. Even Vice President Biden is calling for EFCA. And everyone has certainly been calling for Craig Becker to be approved to the National Labor Relations Board, a man whose position could make him the very personification of card check legislation.

Bottom line: EFCA is now a beleaguered placeholder in the middle of a proxy war.  Is it also a shorthand way of showing one’s hand–hence Blanche Lincoln’s trouble in Arkansas.

Roger Smith, the CEO of American Income Life Insurance Company, that’s who.

Then again, insurance CEOs aren’t usually on anyone’s top-ten lists these days, that is, except for unions’.

Every time the unions need a CEO to embarrass other CEOs, they trot out Roger Smith.

• Need someone to shill for the Employee Free Choice Act? There’s a CEO for that.

• Need someone to shill for health care reform? There’s a CEO for that.

• Need someone to shill for just about any union-backed cause because he insures more than 9 million union members (and stands to gain many more after they are forced into the union and have to buy insurance from him)? There’s a CEO for that, too.

• Need someone who touts their business as being “All-Union, Wall-to-Wall,” but then hires independent contractors, who report working 80 hour work weeks without so much as a health insurance “allowance”

So I guess it is no surprise that the unions’ favorite CEO didn’t make President Obama’s cut.

Do you know who did make Obama’s list of most admired CEOs? It’s a different Smith, FedEx’s Fred Smith, who has been battling UPS and the Teamster’s attempts to unionize his company by bringing it under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Act.

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that despite the 3-1 strike-authorization vote by the Teamsters, Mayor Daley is vowing to keep the airports open no matter what.

“You know what? There’d be 50,000 people applying for these jobs,” Daley said. “I mean, there’s so many people out of work. If you were ever to open employment, there’d be 50,000. These are good-paying jobs. Everybody would like to not work and get two hours’ pay.

“I don’t know how they can strike,” the mayor said. “My argument is that, if there’s no work to be done and they’re getting two hours’ pay, they should be very thankful to taxpayers that they’re getting two hours’ pay.” [...] Since Dec. 15, dozens of pool drivers have been sent home when there is no snow to remove and none forecast. [...]

“In good times, they would hire the Teamsters … and pay ’em [for] eight hours” whether or not there was snow to be removed, Daley said.”But this is such an economic crisis that you can’t sit there and not do work and be paid for eight hours … You can’t plow if there’s no snow and you can’t put salt down. So, appropriately then, after two hours, you have ’em go home. Usuually, they’d be laid off for four months completely.”

With unemployment remaining at 9.7%, it’s not hard to see why Mayor Daley thinks he has the higher ground.

If I told you that SEIU president Andy Stern calls corporations who encourage their employees not to unionize “communists”, would you be waiting for a punch line?

Here’s the quote from the Cornell Daily Sun:

Sun: Despite the concern, why has America’s unionization rate been falling for the past several decades?

A.S.: It’s a combination of three factors. […]The private sector has decided that they want to give people a communist choice, which is no union. That’s all they really want on their ballot, and anyone who really tries to buck the domination and tyranny of the employer will pay a price.

Sun: What do you mean by a communist choice?

A.S.: I’m just saying that in the communist countries when they have elections, there’s really only one choice. What employers want is to make it very clear there’s only one choice as far as they’re concerned, which is no union.

I’d say Andy Stern understands hyperbole, but perhaps he lacks judgment when it comes to metaphors. Let me share with you a favorite Andy Stern quote:

“What we’re working towards is building a global organization because “Workers of the world, unite!” — it’s not just a slogan anymore. It’s a way we have to do our work.”

The National Union of Healthcare Workers released the following video last week of an incident on February 25th in Garden Grove, CA.

You don’t have to watch the whole thing.  Feel free to skip to :43– right about the point when the SEIU worker strikes the cameraman.

The SEIU has good reason to be scared in California, but that’s no reason for them to slip into their well-worn M.O. Seriously, SEIU.  Can’t they come up with something more creative than physical violence?

The New York Times spared few punches in their piece “Still with Obama, But Worried”:

“Because unions have been so crucial to the Democrats election after election, political experts say labor’s ambivalence, or worse, toward the Democrats could greatly deepen that party’s woes this fall.

“Labor is very disappointed, whether it’s about card check or the effort to tax Cadillac health plans,” said Charles E. Cook Jr., publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, referring to a bill that would have made it easier to unionize and to tax high-cost health plans that many union members have. “They’re really disillusioned. I think one by one unions will start getting engaged and helping out the Democrats, but it could be half-hearted.” [...]

“We’ve seen a decline in support among union members for both Obama and the Democrats,” Terry Madonna, director of the college’s Center for Politics and Public Affairs, said. “Part of it is that unemployment brings low job performance ratings, no matter what the party. And less enthusiasm means that union members are less likely to vote.”"

And my favorite line comes from AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka:

“It’s totally unfair to say that the president hasn’t done this or done that,” Mr. Trumka added. “He’s tried on the stimulus bill. He faces tremendous Republican opposition. On health care, I give him the highest marks for tenacity.”

Saying that someone gets “high marks for tenacity” is like telling your friend that their significant other  “has a great personality”.

You heard that right. Somehow SEIU President Andy Stern passed the vetting to be nominated for the National Commission on Fiscal Responsiblity and Reform, so-named so that it can be declared a success without actually reducing any deficits.

He has gleefully accepted. From the SEIU release:

“I am honored to have been asked to serve on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and thank President Obama for ensuring that the voice of ordinary working Americans will be heard. “I have talked to thousands of our members, many low-wage workers, who have to make hard choices everyday to make ends meet, while never losing sight of their dreams — to provide a more prosperous future for their families.”

The Daily Caller hailed the move as par for the course for the Administration. Hot Air exclaimed that perhaps President Obama was getting tired on Stern and saw the commission as a perhaps opportunity to get him out of Obama’s hair. The Atlantic pointed out he’s not the only SEIU-er on a high level panel; SEIU’s Anna Burger sits on the Middle Class Task Force and the President’s Economic Recovery Board.

The Atlantic continues that “oddly enough” Stern opposed the commission when it was being considered in the Senate.

Maybe the difference is that the Senate commission possibly would have had some teeth.  The labor-laced presidential commission on the deficit is practically guaranteed to have nothing of the sort.  For Stern this means access to his favorite house (The White House) and clout. Stern likely will have little meaningful to say about deficit reduction–unless you count his own experience spending flagrant amounts of other people’s money, all while being millions in debt.

Image courtesy of Squeaky Marmot.

This morning, i.e. the day that institutions bury news, the White House released the “Annual Report of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class“, which had some nice things to say about EFCA. Among the pro-labor policies touted in the report on the “Middle Class,” starting on page 23 is a page plus on the importance of EFCA and the values it embodies. The report calling for EFCA does not mean it’s less dead, it’s just that the Administration has a responsibility to stay positive on the party line.

What’s funny is whose cited in the report.  The EFCA section of the White House report cites the Economic Policies Institute, a union-founded and funded group. According to the New York Post, it is a “creature of the national AFL-CIO.” What’s even more ridiculous is that it cites a report from EPI by none other than Jared Berstein and friends, entitled “The State of Working America 2008/2009.”

So who is Jared Bernstein? Why today he’s the Chief Economist and Economist Policy Advisor for Vice President Biden, who just happened to release this enlightening report. He says elsewhere he is the Executive Director of the task force. Yes my friends….Bernstein quotes himself.

Hallmarks of the middle class that raised millions into the middle class over the last 50 years were basically ignored.  “Unions” or “unionization were mentioned 34 times, by my count. By contrast,”small business(es)” were mentioned just 8 times. The word “entrepreneur” is never even mentioned in the report. Heck, even the Great Depression got mentioned twice.