Many Democrats are skeptical that the president can accomplish both of these goals this year, but I think we are much closer to votes on key legislation than the conventional wisdom holds. People should realize that health care reform is largely written and been passed through committee. While it still has a long way to go, it is further along now than President Clinton’s proposal ever was. Once that passes, it will be possible for the labor reform bill to also make its way through Congress.

Casting these key votes will be very important for Specter; in fact, I believe his “Aye” votes on health care reform and EFCA will be nails in the coffin for Joe Sestak’s campaign. It is easy for progressive activists to rail against Specter now. He’s famously independent and untrustworthy, and supported much of the Bush Administration’s policies. However, Specter is making all the right moves since becoming a Democrat, enough for many liberals to begin getting comfortable with the idea that the elder statesman may finally be finding a comfortable place in the party of the new American majority. Specter’s negatives are in the past, and there’s no doubt they are many, but if his future is anything like his present, he probably has a bright future in the Democratic party establishment.

Back in 2007, when Specter cast the deciding vote for cloture on the bill that had come before the Senate, he both stated and wrote that he did so not on the merits of the legislation itself but to take up the issue of labor law reform.

In fact, he co-authored an essay last year with Eric S. Nguyen for the Harvard Journal on Legislation, the focus of which was employee rights and the need for reform to protect against the unfair practices of both employers and unions.

Earlier this year, Specter again asserted that it was not a lack of desire on his part to see reform, but rather a discomfort with certain aspects of EFCA that he found objectionable, namely, mandatory arbitration and the elimination of the secret ballot.

Now, you can argue that Specter was either misinformed or outright misleading about the issue of a secret ballot as there is no such language in the bill and secret ballots have for years been the rallying cry of Republicans when it comes to labor law reform, or that his reluctance to back arbitration was nothing more than an effort to protect business interests, or that all of his public rhetoric on the issue has been nothing more than political posturing.

Or, you can look at his statements and accept that, underneath it all, he has always had the rights of workers in mind, which means protecting them from the abuses of any who would try to exploit them.

The truth, as with any politician, is probably somewhere in between.

I’m sure it goes without saying that I wholeheartedly support the rights of workers to unionize to protect their interests and stand up for their rights. As our Founding Fathers were well aware, a system of checks and balances is the best one available to keep a check on power and protect the rights of all. Unions and organization are the best—and often only—defenses workers have against abuses and exploitation, and I don’t believe that anyone should have to endure exploitation at the hands of another.

If the current system was working, we wouldn’t be hearing about the constant horror stories faced by unprotected workers in non-unionized environments (Wal-Mart, anyone?). At the moment, EFCA is the best defense we have to offer to these people. If someone can come up with something better, I’d be happy to listen. But it needs to be now, not something we put on the back burner again for another decade or more.

As for the accusations that have been leveled at me about my lack of “real world” knowledge of the issues, well, I would beg to differ. I think I have a rather unique perspective on the issues.

Being from southwestern Pennsylvania, mill and mine country and the place where a lot of labor disputes occurred (Google “Homestead Steel Strike”), I’m well aware of often horrific history of treatment of workers by owners and management who knew they could get away with it because there was no one to stop them. This was the impetus for the labor movement in the first place. It wasn’t to put the screws to management, to destroy the economy, to socialize the country, or any of the other hyperbolic reasons being thrown around these days. It was to protect workers, who sorely needed protecting (and before you go trying to make the argument that “that was then, this is now, things are different,” I can assure you, human nature does not change).

Additionally, while my father, his brothers, and a number of other family members and friends, worked in the steel mills, the other side of my family owned and operated a rather successful auto dealership for decades and themselves employed a number of people along the way. When my great-uncles got too old to deal with the business any longer and decided to sell, my aunt, who’d been managing things for decades anyway, called a meeting of all of the employees, told them upfront what was happening, and promised to both keep them informed and to make every payday along the way, promises she kept.

A few years after the sale, my mother went to work for another local dealership also owned by a family, a very nice family who became not only her employers, but also our friends. However, friendship didn’t mean a thing when, a few years later, they decided to sell and never told the employees a thing. They heard rumors in the ether but weren’t actually informed until the deal had already gone through. My mother kept her job, that time, but just two years ago, after half a century in the business, she, along with every other employee of the then current owners, were given three days notice that the dealership would be closing for good. Even before the current automotive crisis, as a small franchise in a demographically undesirable area, their attempts to sell the dealership to another owner were turned down by GM. Their contract with the automaker had three more months until its expiration, so they could have stayed open at least long enough to give the employees, gee, I don’t know, a whole week’s notice. But they didn’t.

The bottom line is, you can’t always rely on the kindness and goodness of owners and managers to treat their workers with the respect, decency and dignity they deserve. And to those whose attitude seems to be that “those people should be happy with the crumbs they’re given,” well, I can’t really post here what I’d like to say to you—we can talk later.

But what I will say is that “those people” are human beings. Those people are your friends, families, neighbors and fellow citizens. And unfortunately, I think a lot of “those people” have become convinced that they really should be happy with the crumbs thrown their way, a situation we should all want to rectify.

If you can’t see your way clear to extend the basics of decency and respect to your fellow American, then you truly are part of the problem.

As for the supposed economic arguments against unionized workplaces, I’d point out that unions were very strong during the economic and political heyday of post-World War II America. And many of the corporate financial problems we’re witnessing today have more to do with lack of foresight, arrogance and a sense that the party was never going to end than they do with anything else.

Of course, skyrocketing health care costs have contributed more than just about anything to labor costs in recent years meaning U.S. companies can’t compete with those based in countries with government-provided health care and highlighting the crucial need to address our failing system.

Do unions have their problems? Yes, they do. Have they ever overstepped their bounds? Yes, they have. We lost one of our newspapers in Pittsburgh more than a decade back due to a refusal by union workers to accept the simple realities of the times. Unions are not perfect, and neither is EFCA. But neither are they the bogeymen and root of all evil they’ve been made out to be by those with their own agendas.

It’s unfortunate that we can’t just rely on each other’s basic goodness to keep the other guy’s interests in mind, but we can’t. As we have in our government, as we have in our judicial system, we must also have in our workforce an adversarial system that keeps power in check on both sides and leads us as close to a perfect solution as we’re ever going to get.

On Monday, a national poll released by Rasmussen showed that Americans now trust Republicans more than Democrats on many of the most important issues currently facing our country. On the most pressing issues facing our country, including national security, immigration and the economy, voters trust that the candidates and officials of the Republican Party will do a better job of growing our economy and keeping our country safe.

Things aren’t much better for the Democrats in Pennsylvania. Susquehanna Polling & Research this week found that a clear majority of Pennsylvanians disagree with one of the cornerstones of the Democrats’ agenda—The Employee Free Choice Act, most commonly referred to as “card-check.” According to the results of the poll, 55 percent of voters surveyed expressed their opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, with an amazing 40 percent “strongly opposing” the legislation.

These polls reiterate the fact that the Republican Party is in tune with the values of American and Pennsylvania voters. We support a worker’s right to a secret ballot because the right to vote without fear of retribution is one of the most basic freedoms we have as Americans. We recognize that citizens are best served by their government when they are left alone, free to live their lives and spend their hard-earned money as they see fit. Our Party also holds true to the belief that throwing billions of dollars at a problem, like all of the Democrats who voted for the stimulus package before reading the bill, will burden the families of this country and this Commonwealth.

Right.

The first thing you need to keep in mind here is that, as the story points out, Susquehanna Polling & Research is a Republican firm, and Republicans are nothing if not dead-set against giving employees the right to form unions. The next thing you should do is go and read the questions asked of respondents. Every one of the three questions posed about EFCA, or “card check” as the poll referred to it, expressly repeats, and indeed begins with, the often-claimed GOP lie that EFCA takes away employees’ right to a secret ballot.

EFCA does no such thing. If one-third of workers choose to hold a National Labor Relations Board election at their workplace, they retain the right to ask the federal government to do so. EFCA does not take away any workers’ rights; it gives them more by providing a second option for forming a union that does not involve the NLRB process that has been co-opted, twisted and manipulated by far too many employers looking to stop their workers from forming a union.

A secret-ballot election sounds great, until you realize that the system doesn’t work quite the way it sounds. Employers hold all the cards, controlling the flow of information, the ability of workers to meet and organize, and even their eventual ability to hold their secret-ballot vote. And along the way, they can continue to harass, intimidate and threaten termination to any employee trying to unionize. Seriously, if EFCA truly did take away workers’ rights, do you really think organizations representing working people would be wholeheartedly supporting it? Come on!

It’s not unions, Democrats, the AFL-CIO, or anyone else of that ilk trying to take away workers’ rights. It is, as always, Republicans and the corporate honchos they represent. Really, when is the last time you recall Republicans standing up for the working class?

This poll is completely meaningless, rendered so by the fact that it is, like so much coming out of the right side of the political and social aisle these days, predicated completely on lies.

We do need an accurate calibration of where Pennsylvanians stand on EFCA, and a realistic accounting to them of exactly what this bill does and doesn’t do. Pennsylvanians, and all Americans, have been lied to, misled, and taken for a ride long enough. We need, and should want, the truth.

This poll is certainly not it.

The survey of 700 registered voters, conducted by the GOP firm Susquehanna Polling & Research, found 55 percent of voters opposed to the “card-check” bill and only 29 percent in favor. Forty percent were “strongly” opposed while only 15 percent were “strongly” in favor, according to the poll.

“The broad-based opposition to this legislation suggests that people don’t view the right to cast
a ‘private ballot’ as a Republican or Democrat issue, but one that is sacred to everyone,” Susquehanna pollster Jim Lee said.

Senator Arlen Specter is under intense pressure from labor activists in his new party to support the bill, which he originally sponsored but has become cooler to as the issue has become more and more politically sensitive. At a labor rally last weekend in Pittsburgh, Specter encountered hostility in the face of his resistance to the legislation.

The poll, conducted late last month, had a margin of error of 3.7 percent.

Click here for the full poll.

“He’s gotta vote more like other Democratic Senators in the northeast,” Geroge told pa2010.com Friday evening, comparing Specter’s labor voting record with other area Democrats.

How important is the Employee Free Choice Act in that picture?

“Nothing is more important than that,” George said.

But now, with Sestak looming and repeatedly criticizing Specter as a faux Democrat, every vote, even procedural ones, could prove to be a veritable high-stakes bonanza that could make or break his reelection campaign. And if Specter, ever the political survivor, triangulates a bit more to satisfy he new party, don’t be surprised.

“He’ll be a better Democrat, he’ll be a more loyal democrat, even though he said he wouldn’t be,” said Tony Campisi, a vice-chair of the Delaware County Democratic Party and a Sestak supporter.

“I think he got off to a very rocky start as a Democrat—it was a very clumsy start,” Campisi added. “He’s certainly making an effort to change that, and the prospect of a primary means he’s going to have to reach out more and find out what activists and voters in the Democratic Party want from a United States Senator and start acting on that.”

Specter’s campaign manager declined to comment on how Sestak’s likely candidacy would effect the political landscape and the ramifications of any votes he casts. But with huge issues coming down the pipeline for Congress to consider, it’s clear that Specter faces a choice between sticking to some level of his own principle or assuaging the Democratic base he needs to get reelected. Just as he came out against The Employee Free Choice—known as card-check—to quell conservative anger over his vote for President Obama’s stimulus package before switching parties, he could soon find himself supporting the labor-backed legislation to tamp down dissatisfaction over his recent vote against Obama’s budget.

No one, even his staunchest foes, doubts that Specter is uniquely gifted when it comes to this kind of political and policy maneuvering. But if he doesn’t do it carefully, he could lose the significant credibility he had with Democratic voters even before he switched to their side.

From card-check and health care to energy and education, there is no shortage of potential ideological stumbling blocks Specter could face in the coming months. And any misstep could provide Sestak with the liberal outrage he would likely need to come close to matching Specter’s fundraising.

“He’s on the hot seat,” David Dunphy, a Democratic political consultant, said of Specter. “Every one of these votes coming up in the next year he’s in the hot seat, and every one has political implications.

“On the other hand,” Dunphy added, “Senator Specter’s not a dumb man. He’s a survivor.”

As an early test, card-check could prove particularly important. When he initially switched parties in late April, he signaled that he was still against the bill. But since then, he and people close to him have increasingly signaled that some sort of compromise legislation might be possible, and soon.

“If Specter goes against labor on this and they put their money into Sestak, then he’s got the money to run a race,” Dunphy said.

To Campisi, discussions like this illuminate why Specter is the wrong choice for Democrats in the first place.

“He is a Democrat out of necessity,” Campisi said. “Joe Sestak is a Democrat by choice. There’s a real difference there.”

Two months later, after riding something of a political carousel, Specter is right back where he started. Now running for reelection as a Democrat, Specter is once again being squeezed, this time by liberals and labor officials who want him to back some kind of compromise for the bill. And just as opposing it was seen as critical for his Republican primary hopes, supporting it now could prove just as important if he hopes to make it out of the Democratic primary next year.

“He now faces tremendous pressure from his left flank, just as he faced it as a Republican from his right flank,” said G. Terry Madonna, a pollster and political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College. “I don’t think there’s any doubt he’d like to find a way to support this if he can.

“There’s no doubt that this has become the thorniest issue he has to deal with at the moment,” Madonna added.

After announcing his party-switch last month, Specter insisted he wouldn’t change his position on card-check. But that stance gave way almost immediately to the political reality. With Democrats eyeing their new colleague warily, labor groups targeting him and Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7) licking his lips at a possible primary challenge, reports were emerging last week that Specter was open to a compromise. He recently called the chances for striking a deal “pretty good,” and negotiations over the bill have picked up speed in recent days.

Specter’s office confirmed that “he and his staff have been meeting with labor, business and Senate leaders … on the matter.”

Even if he does support some form of the bill, the political relief could once again prove temporary. With big votes coming up on health care, energy and a new Supreme Court Justice, this is surely not the last time Specter will face such a tough position. And though a potent issue in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, political will to move the bill through Congress right now could prove weaker than some labor leaders hope.

Still, if he backs card-check, analysts and party insiders agree, challenging him in a primary could be almost impossible. Labor would line up behind him, and even some skeptical rank-and-file Democrats could be expected to fall in line.

One Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill said support for Specter could hinge on what kind of compromise legislation gets his support.

“It depends on what he comes out in favor of,” the staffer said. “Is it a good bill that’s helpful for labor or is it a watered down version of the Employee Free Choice Act that won’t help labor? Senator Specter’s unpredictable, so it’s hard to guess what kind of bill he come out in favor of.”

David Glancey, a former Democratic Party chief in Philadelphia, said the stakes in the card-check debate were simple for Specter.

“If there’s some modified version of the bill that he’s able to support, I think it’s over,” Glancey said.

But if there isn’t, things could prove more difficult.

“With [Sestak] considering a Democratic primary challenge, there’s a lot of incentive for Specter to worry about where his labor endorsement is coming from,” Andy Stern, the Service Employees International Union president, told the Las Vegas Sun recently. “He has to deal with the party’s progressive left.”

One thing is certain, Madonna said: “This is a weird environment where almost anything can happen at anytime.”

Pretty soon, Specter’s office won’t be working hard just to find a compromise. They will be working hard just to answer the phone. One of the main organizations spearheading the campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act, American Rights at Work (ARW), has said in a press release that Specter’s office can expect to be receiving 10,000 phone calls urging him to vote yes on the EFCA.

The 10,000 phone calls are part of a broader campaign that the powerful labor unions are initiating. The unions’ persistence in pushing the EFCA presents a serious threat to Specter’s prospects in the upcoming Senatorial primary, thereby providing insight into why he will most likely compromise on his original decision. Having originally voted to advance the EFCA, Specter’s more recent vote against the Act disappointed union leaders. They now see Specter’s switch to the Democratic party as a sign that he is willing to compromise.

American Rights at Work are pressuring Specter to make that compromise. They have released a television ad called “The Right Thing,” which targets Senator Specter. The ad asks Specter if he will stand with American workers or choose to back corporate interests.

According to ARW’s Acting Executive Director Kimberly Freeman, “This new ad makes it clear that the debate on the Employee Free Choice is really a choice between helping the corporations that drove this economy out of balance or helping working people who are losing their homes and their jobs.” Using a subtle play on words, the TV spot implies that Specter risks losing the Senatorial election if he does not vote for the Act: “Call and tell Specter Pennsylvania’s for him… As long as he’s for the Employee Free Choice Act.”

Freeman sees the EFCA as crucial to the vitality of the American economy, particularly in a time of economic trouble, saying: “We hope Senator Specter will join the President and the majority of Congress who understand that if we truly wish to restore our middle class, workers must be able to bargain, not borrow their way to a better life.”