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Another Take on Card Check "Compromise"

By Doug Bandow on 3.22.09 @ 1:28PM

Earlier I took several companies to task for their apparent willingness to compromise on the election-ending "Card Check" bill.  Ed Morrissey argues that the apparent compromise gives organized labor little that it doesn't already have.  Writes Morrissey:

The compromise thus restores the secret ballot requirement for union organizing, and it eliminates the equally offensive arbitration provisions that would allow government to impose its own idea of the management-labor relationship.  What's left?  It forces businesses to allow union-organizing elections in a shorter period of time, and to give unions access to the workplace to organize, two provisions that would easily pass on their own in this session of Congress, and probably would get several Republican votes in both chambers.

It's not great, but it's not horrid, either.  In truth, it gives the unions little that they don't already have, and it strips them of two of their cherished prizes.  It also gives politicians on Capitol Hill a way to throw a bone to union rank and file without offering a complete game-changer.  If it's incrementalism, it's an increment of the smallest variety possible.

A few weeks ago, I predicted that Congress would reach a compromise precisely along these lines.  With this proposal floating now, it will either force the Senate (where the real battle will be fought) to accept this compromise, or it will split the pro-Card Check forces enough to stall any movement on the legislation, as the moderates now have a reason to withhold support for the much more radical version.  Businesses could live with this result, and hope that any abuses can be corrected by a more business-friendly Congress down the road.  It's still a bad bill, but the alternative is much worse.

Since there's a good chance of defeating the Card Check bill, this sort of measure seems unnecessary.  But perhaps the companies aren't as ready to feed the crocodile as I had thought.