Big Labors Card Check In Trouble - Road to the Middle Class

WELL, WELL, well. After all the money and the volunteers that Big Labor poured into the Democrats, it turns out that their signature issue, Card Check, is in trouble.

Card Check, you’ll remember, is Big Labor’s legislative proposal to make it easier to organize Wal-Mart. No need for a secret-ballot election. If a majority of workers at a work place sign cards then that’s it. It’s a union shop.

Back in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, according to Michael Barone, Big Labor built a big political operation to help Democrats.

Union money and union organizers did yeoman work for Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 elections, and union leaders plausibly claim much of the credit for the Democratic capture of both houses of Congress and the White House.

Democrats were suitablly grateful and were delighted to vote for Card Check.

That was when President Bush was in the White House and he had promised to veto Card Check or, as Big Labor prefers to call it, the Employee Free Choice Act.

The House obediently passed the card-check bill on pretty much a party-line vote. Every Democratic senator not only voted to bring card check to a vote, but also co-sponsored the bill. Republican Sen. Arlen Specter voted to bring it to a vote, too.

That was then. This is now.

Now that congressional Democrats face the prospect of casting not a symbolic vote, knowing that a Bush veto was a certainty, but a real vote that will affect the real world, they started having qualms. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi let it be known that the House would not vote on card check till the Senate acted. In other words, if I’m going to ask some of my members to cast a tough vote, one that will be hard to explain in their districts, I want to be sure the Senate won’t undercut them.

As for the Senate, Specter announced he won’t vote for card check. Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln, up for re-election in 2010, said she wouldn’t, either. Michael Bennet, the Democrat appointed to fill a vacant Senate seat in Colorado, who faces the voters in 2010, said card check can’t pass in its present form.

There’s a lesson here, and it’s a lesson that anyone who wants something from the politicians should take to heart.

Politicians don’t care about you or your issue. They don’t care about compassion and justice. They only care about getting elected. They’ll take your money and your sweat and smile sweetly. But when it comes to the crunch, don’t expect them to be standing shoulder to shoulder.

If you want something from the hide of the American people, whether you are a labor bigwig or an earnest environmentalist, you would do best to cultivate both sides of the aisle. Forget all your sacred principle. Principle belongs in church. If you are active in politics, remember this. If it’s politics it’s all about power.

You want something from the politicians? Then pay ’em and pay ’em good. But don’t think you can trust them.

There’s an old saying about this: Put not your trust in princes.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.