Obama Reaffirms Support for Employee Free Choice Act

Obama Reaffirms Support
for Employee Free Choice Act

by Seth Michaels, Feb 12, 2009

In an Oval Office interview with major newspapers yesterday, President Barack Obama reaffirmed his strong support for the freedom to form unions and bargain.

The Detroit Free Press and the Philadelphia Inquirer were among the papers that got a chance to talk to Obama about the challenges facing our economy, and Obama once again offered his support for the Employee Free Choice Act.

According to the Inquirer, Obama discounted the corporate community’s argument that workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain would be bad for the economy. The president said that, indeed, workers’ freedom to bargain was good for the long-term health of the economy.


I don’t buy the argument that providing workers with collective bargaining rights somehow weakens the economy or worsens the business environment. If you’ve got workers who have decent pay and benefits, they’re also customers for business.

The Inquirer also reports that Obama does not want to delay passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. This echoes a Jan. 30 statement by Vice President Joe Biden, who heads the White House’s task force on working families. Biden told CNBC the administration hopes Congress passes the Employee Free Choice Act this year. Both Obama and Biden were co-sponsors of the legislation in the Senate.

In his announcement of the task force Jan. 30, Obama made it clear he sees unions as essential to a strong economy.

We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests, because we know that you cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement. When workers are prospering, they buy products that make businesses prosper.

The Employee Free Choice Act is critical to the nation’s economic recovery, a point made by numerous analysts including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. Speaking in Florida yesterday, Reich said the bill would open the door for workers to bargain for health care, pensions and fair wages, restoring their economic security and reversing the wage stagnation that has contributed to a weak economy.

Obama and experts agree: Quick passage of the Employee Free Choice Act will improve the economy for working families.
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/02/12/obama-reaffirms-support-for-employee-free-choice-act/

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Questions about FDR, Obama, and Racism...

Why was Roosevelt so "cautious?"

Roosevelt was cautious because the Great Depression was unprecedented.

The better question is why is Obama so cautious?


Why were the New Deal policies not bold enough?

The New Deal Policies were not bold enough at first,because the president did not want the American people to suffer or the ship of state to flounder. The point,however, is that when it became apparent that the policies
were not working... FDR had the sense, scruples, and courage
to move forward with more daring and effective policies. The criticisms raised by Republicans are based on ignoring this critical fact.
FDR learned from mistakes and corrected them. The Bush Cheney White House,like the Hoover White House.... ignored or denied mistakes and learned nothing.And we suffer for their incompetence.

What was holding Roosevelt back?

Roosevelt was not holding back. He was trying whatever might work until he found something that did. I prefaced my remarks about Roosevelt by the statement that he was not necessarily the brightest president, but he listened, learned, and got the job done. This may be why he was elected so many times.

What role did southern racist Democrats have to play in this?
Southerners voted for Roosevelt. This was a transformational period. Following Roosevelt's administration, Democrats lost the votes of most Southern whites. But during Roosevelts new deal, Most Southerners moved away from the racist iconoclasts who opposed Roosevelt's New Deal. This is when the Southern Racist Democrat label was becoming an anachronism.