Top '08 Democratic Candidates Push Hard For Big Labor Agenda

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&issue=20070329

Top '08 Democratic Candidates Push Hard For Big Labor Agenda

BY SEAN HIGGINS

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 3/29/2007

A Senate panel convened Tuesday to discuss new legislation to make union organizing radically easier. Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., were right there for it.

Both eagerly backed the legislation, called the Employee Free Choice Act. It would allow organizers to essentially bypass the National Labor Relations Board's election process and unionize companies with what amounts to a petition drive.

In fact, the two senators seemed to be in a contest over who could offer the strongest words for the bill, also called "card check."

Both spoke at length on the economic benefits of unionization and charged that some people were being denied the right to unionize.

The incident illustrates how important union support has become to the Democratic Party and its presidential contenders. The candidate that secures labor's endorsement first will have a major edge over all others in 2008.

Clinton made the case that the bill should not be viewed as anti-business but rather as pro-worker.

"It is important to put this in a larger context, to look at the benefits to our country by giving workers a voice," she said.

Obama spoke later but went further. He argued that workers were being victimized by the current organizing laws.

"The employers are abiding by the letter of the law . . . but it turns out we (still) have an overwhelming number of voters who would want to join a union," Obama said. "It would seem to me that we should change the law."

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the other top party contender for '08, also backs the bill.

"We need to make it easier for workers to organize themselves into unions," he said in a written statement after the House passed similar legislation in March.

FULL article at link.

[mzmolly]

1. This should be posted in GD as well. I am very encouraged by our collective return

to "labor" roots.