Jennifer Rubin at Pajamas Media -
Big Labor has taken its lumps lately. The UAW failed to buffalo Congress into giving the Big Three a bailout without significant and prompt restructuring of their labor agreements. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) made an appearance in Blago-gate. This week the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act, which would dispense with secret ballot elections in labor organizing attempts, lost Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas who pronounced that now was not the time for what will certainly be a knock-down-drag-out fight. But the biggest blow may have come from an unlikely source.
On his radio show Al Sharpton announced that he would be opposing the EFCA and mobilizing the African American community against it. [An excerpt of his conversation with Sylvester Smith, a small business owner, and Charlie King of the National Action Network, is here.] …
Whatever one’s opinion of Sharpton, his opposition to EFCA signals an important division within the Democratic Party. If he and his followers organize and influence members of the Black Caucus in the House, for example, or apply pressure to wavering Democratic senators, the fierce fight will get a lot fiercer.
Certainly politics makes strange bed fellows and none would be stranger than pro-business fiscal conservatives joining forces with — Al Sharpton. But it might be one more reason, if any were needed, for President-elect Obama to put this at the bottom instead of the top of his agenda. Rather than risk a filibuster and a divided Democratic Party, the better course of action might be to put this on the shelf for another day.
Ed blogging on this too, with video.
