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Key Democrat Blanche Lincoln To Oppose Employee Free Choice Act, As Is

In what is, perhaps, the most devastating blow yet to the fate of the Employee Free Choice Act, Sen. Blanche Lincoln said on Monday that she will oppose the union-backed legislation.

The Arkansas Democrat, whose home state includes WalMart, one of the major business groups fighting EFCA, announced her decision during a meeting of the Little Rock Political Animals Club.

"I cannot support that bill," Lincoln said, according to Arkansas Business. "Cannot support that bill in its current form. Cannot support and will not support moving it forward in its current form."

Labor forces can ill-afford to lose any Democrats in this legislative battle, given the partisan lines of the EFCA vote in 2007. Already, Sen. Arlen Specter, the lone Senate Republican to vote for cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act back then, has indicated he will oppose cloture if the bill were to be brought up in this Congress.

Lincoln, long considered a crucial Democratic vote on EFCA, was the focus of intense political pressure. Union groups were courting her support while the business community had made her a primary target for defection. Indeed, WalMart hired her former chief of staff for the precise purpose of lobbying on EFCA. Lincoln is up for reelection in 2010.

UPDATE: AFL-CIO spokesperson Eddie Vale says he isn't distraught with the news.

For the next two weeks, thousands of people are participating in hundreds of events across the country in support of the Employee Free Choice Act," he writes. "We're confident that labor law reform is going to pass in 2009. The Employee Free Choice Act is built on 3 fundamental things and we're continuing to talk to Senators to build 60 votes for a bill that stays true to those principles:
o Workers need to have a real choice to form a union and bargain for a better life, free from intimidation

o We have to stop the endless delays; companies can't just stall to stop workers' choice

o There have to be real penalties for violating the law.

Vale also contested my characterization of Lincoln's remarks being a real hit for EFCA proponents saying: "This certainly isn't 'devastating' as you described it, it's political science 101.A bill is introduced and then Congress works through the process of committees, amendments, and debates and 99 out of 100 times the final bill is different from when it started."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/06/key-democrat-blanche-linc_n_183613.html?view=print

Obama Supports a Union!

This is good news for those of us who care about economic justice. People should be pay the true value of their work; not the value of other people's concern for what they do. ~ No1KState

Here, via Huffington Post -

Obama Vs. Schwarzenegger: White House Threatens To Rescind Stimulus Funds

Rachel Wiener, 5/8/09

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been one of the prominent Republican defenders of President Obama's stimulus plan. He's called the California governor "one of the great innovators of state government" and "an outstanding partner with our administration." But their relationship has hit a rough patch.

The L.A. Times reports that the Obama administration is threatening to rescind stimulus billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds if wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers are not restored.

Schwarzenegger's office was advised this week by federal health officials that the wage reduction, which will save California $74 million, violates provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Failure to revoke the scheduled wage cut before it takes effect July 1 could cost California $6.8 billion in stimulus money, according to state officials.
The Service Employees International Union, which represents the workers, requested the opinion from Obama's Department of Health and Human Services.

"The Obama Administration has made it clear that the State cannot cut the homecare workers' wages. Now we need our counties to follow suit and take all the cuts off the table," said SEIU Executive Vice President and SEIU UHW Trustee, Eliseo Medina.

"I am glad that President Obama stood up for us," said Greg Price, a homecare worker and SEIU UHW member in Fresno County. "Now it is up to the County to stand up for workers like me."

Schwarzenegger, however, has said the state doesn't have the money.

"Neither the Legislature nor I make decisions to reduce wages or benefits lightly, but only as a last resort in response to an unprecedented fiscal crisis," Schwarzenegger wrote in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. He urged the administration to reconsider.