AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said that if President Barack Obama wins a second term, Americans should expect to see “card check” legislation “within the next term.”
Trumka, whose unions are sending nearly 2,000 poll monitors to battleground states, told The Atlantic that Big Labor will demand the Obama administration pass legislation that would effectively end secret ballot elections to form unions.
When The Atlantic asked Trumka if he has given up on card check, Trumka said it was still the unions’ top priority after 2012 if Obama wins, and they will never give up on it.
“You’ll see it,” Trumka said. “That’s within the next term.”
When asked how that could be “possible, without a Democratic House of Representatives or 60 votes in the Senate,” Trumka smiled and said, “There’s another election between now and then.”
Card Check, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, would strip away rights from workers at companies where unions want to organize. Unions would be instantly recognized once a majority of employees sign authorization cards, and workers would be forced to sign those cards in public in front of union organizers and co-workers who may favor forming a union.
This would allow unions to intimidate workers into signing union cards. Union organizers would even be able to go to the homes of the workers to bully, threaten, and intimidate them into signing union membership cards.
Big Labor wanted Obama to pass Card Check legislation during his first term, but strong opposition from Democrats and Republicans prevented it from happening.
If Obama wins reelection, Big Labor will have had a critical role in it — and Trumka, in no uncertain terms, has made certain they will expect Card Check legislation as payment during Obama’s second term.
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