Business vs. labor: Round 2 for card check

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By Kara Rowland

Having successfully checked "card-check," business groups are mounting a second offensive on Capitol Hill against major changes to the nation's labor laws, seizing on another controversial aspect of the bill in hopes of thwarting an unpalatable compromise by moderate Democrats.

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), organized labor's top legislative priority, has sparked a fierce lobbying battle pitting the nation's unions against virtually a united front of the nation's major business lobbies, with the Obama administration and many centrist Democrats caught in the crossfire.

The original bill would have enabled workers to form a union if a majority of employees sign authorization cards, a "card-check provision" taking away the ability of businesses to demand a secret-ballot election in organizing battles.

Efforts by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to paint the card-check proposal as poisonous to the economy appear to have worked as Democratic supporters struggle to round up the necessary 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. But EFCA opponents now worry that some moderates could support a compromise that still includes binding arbitration.

EFCA also would stiffen penalties for labor law violations and allow for a government-appointed arbitrator to impose a binding contract if companies and workers cannot reach a collective-bargaining deal after 120 days. Both of these provisions would significantly strengthen labor's hand in organizing battles.

"Our concern is that you would find senators that know this is a bad bill but would perhaps be lured into voting for what we call 'card check lite,'" said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the Chamber's Workforce Freedom Initiative.

Despite some early setbacks, bill backers say they have not given up the fight.

An aide to Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat and a lead EFCA sponsor, said the senator is "still working toward labor reform this year."

"Talks are continuing on Capitol Hill as they always have," the aide said. "We are making progress."

Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican turned Democrat from Pennsylvania who could cast a key Senate vote on a modified EFCA, hinted to a crowd of union activists in Pittsburgh over the weekend that he might be ready to accept the compromise labor bill.