Big Unions Unlikely To Fight House Dem Leadership’s Slow-Down Of Employee Free Choice
The big labor unions are unlikely to fight a decision by the House Democratic leadership to defer to the Blue Dog Dems in the House and let the Senate vote first on the Employee Free Choice Act, I’m told by several senior labor officials.
As I first reported below, the House Dem leadership agrees with Blue Dog Dems who, nervous about getting too far out front on Employee Free Choice in their moderate districts, are saying that the Senate should vote on the measure first.
The House Dem leadership’s perspective is irking some labor officials, because they’d hoped for the House to pass a strong version up front, and because letting the Senate go first could push back the bill’s timing. But instead of fighting the decision, labor officials are saying they’ll almost certainly accept it.
One senior labor official says the AFL-CIO is unlikely to fight the House Dems’ decision. “They won’t make a big deal out of it,” the official says. AFL-CIO spokesperson Eddie Vale would only say: “Talks are ongoing, and we’re open to compromise.”
Labor officials are up on the Hill right now hashing out the timing details with House staffers.
“The House is running the show, and it’s completely up to them on where and when the bill will be introduced,” says another labor official. “It’s looking likely that the Senate will take up the bill first.”
Apparently labor officials have gotten sufficient enough guarantees that the bill will pass the House that they’re not gonna make an issue of timing. Official statements from labor are forthcoming on this. More soon.
Update: AFL-CIO spokesperson Eddie Vale emails to clarify: “There have been no decisions made yet on any of these matters and the timing of the bill introduction is still being worked out between the White House and the leadership in the House and Senate.”
The homepage of this blog is here. Its RSS feed is here. And its Twitter feed is here.
tena, didn’t you say yesterday you were getting mail from Republicans? any way you might scan it in and send it to me?
I’d like to thank the leaders of Labor who are willing to cooperate right now on timing. A lot of people are getting way impatient and when “three and a half weeks” is dismissed with a sneer as being long enough to have fixed every damn thing and changed every damn policy, then some people have lost their minds. I’m glad Labor has decided to be publicly sane. In the atmosphere, every bit of sanity that is demonstrated is a big plus for the left. Honest – I wish some people would put in a sock in it. Three and a half weeks when faced with the biggest effing crisis since the Great Depression, is not long enough to hang a judgment like: Obama is just going to continue Bush’s torture/secrecy/imperialist executive on. It’s not – and it doesn’t sound reasonable or sane – GG, I’m talking to you – to insist otherwise.
Greg – I tried. And tried.
I got the scan but I could not get the file to upload into an email. There are problems trying to work on a mac with msn hotmail – but I’m still trying – I’m sorry.
no prob tena, really appreciate the effort … what do the mailers say?
The only one that was relevant was from a representative who doesn’t represent us. That one was all about the stimulus and how tax cuts are the answer to everything and the spending future generations into debt (which is their present lying meme and really, folks, is there one reason to believe Republicans?). Then he asked for money.
I have no idea why we got that letter since we’re not in his district, unless he just sent them out to people on Repug mailing lists all over north Texas, which I suspect may be the case.
Fluffy sent us an advertisement for herself as the Great Conservative Hope for gov. And asked for money. Then one came from a Texas Supreme Court Judge. It was an invitation to a fund raiser. That one is linked to work – that’s why he got it.
Duh!
The rep is Michael Burgess, M.D. and he represents a district north of here that includes the towns of Denton and Lewisville.
huh, ok, thx tena.
Not quite as thrilling as one hoped, Greg. Sorry!
Has Solis’ confirmation been approved in the Health Education Labor and Pensions committee, or did the story about her husband’s tax lien put everything on hold indefinitely? The Senate confirmation process is astoundingly molasses-like; I don’t believe Dawn Johnsen has even had a hearing in the Judiciary committee.