Despite its paltry membership (12.1% of the workforce), the U.S. labor movement remains the nation’s most potent force for progressive change and the most effective vehicle for electing Democrats. As Kelly Candaele and I point out in our article in today’s The American Prospect, eye-opening exit poll data reveal the tremendous effectiveness of unions’ education and mobilization efforts in getting union members — including church-going and gun-owning white working class voters — to support Obama.
To expand workers’ rights and union membership, it is critical to reform the nation’s outdated and anti-union labor laws. The upcoming battle over labor law reform — the Employee Free Choice Act — could be a turning point in American political history. But even with Obama’s support and a Democratic Congress, enacting the law won’t be easy. Business leaders and their allies in Congress understand that a resuscitated labor movement would be an effective counterweight to their political influence. Unions cannot — and should not — fight this battle alone. To get Congress to pass EFCA, all liberal groups need to use all their political muscle to energize their supporters on behalf of labor-law reform. Americans who care about building a healthier, more livable society — one in which prosperity is widely shared — should view the battle over the Employee Free Choice Act as a fight for their own future as well.
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Tags: Barack Obama, democrats, Employee Free Choice Act, labor, labor movement
