Greg Sargent comments on the new anti-Employee Free Choice Act website:
The game here is that EFCA opponents want to force labor to defend the secret ballot and binding arbitration provisions at a time when labor officials want to keep the argument focused on the plight of workers, because when the battle is fought on that rhetorical turf, labor has the upper hand.
Ah, so the “game” is to force the proponents to discuss what is in the bill they are pushing? Interesting. Pretty underhanded stuff, all that discussion of substance, if you ask me. And presumably the real serious undertaking would not be discussing what’s in the bill, but instead talking generically about the “plight of workers.” Well, then I guess we would get into the correlation between union density and unemployment. (Larry Summers could come testify at hearings on that very important subject.)
I cannot recall another piece of significant legislation in which the proponents wanted to avoid talking about the merits of their own bill. But then I also can’t recall another piece of legislation in which the opponents couldn’t wait to have more and more discussion about the bill — even after they found the votes to defeat it.
