Trumka: We Will Attach EFCA To Something

The Employee Free Choice Act has taken on many different lives over the past year. We saw the original bill become a compromise of sorts after several Democrats expressed concern with card check. Still, there is no “official” compromise bill but Democrats insist they are regularly having negotiations and discussions concerning the bill.

And just how they are going to pass EFCA has left a number of questions. When the thought of getting 60 votes in the Senate appeared out of reach, attention soon turned to the National Labor Relations Board. With a 3-1 pro-labor majority, some labor leaders are pushing to have the board institute provisions of EFCA. Right now, that appears to labor’s best shot at getting approval of their top-priority. After the 2010 elections, Congress will most likely be less union friendly, but the NLRB will remain.

But here is another twist for instituting EFCA. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumpka, knowing it can’t pass on its own, is calling on Congress to attach EFCA to some other (most likely more popular) piece of legislation. “Anything we can get it attached to. There are multitudes of things we can get it attached to, and we will. We will get it done and it will be a good thing for the country.”

Trumka, who has publicly remained confident that the bill will pass, said there will be a vote on the bill this year- and it will pass.