A senior union official said Thursday that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is still very much alive and that labor groups will continue to lobby for it. Bill Samuel, director of government affairs for the AFL-CIO, said Scott Brown’s election to the Massachusetts Senate seat, does change the dynamic in the Senate since Democrats will no longer have 60 votes to beat back a filibuster.
“We are obviously reevaluating our strategy,” Samuel said on a conference call with reporters. “We have no intention of backing off that commitment.”
Even when Democrats had a super-majority in the Senate though, labor groups were finding it difficult to round up enough votes to move forward with EFCA, which would make union organizing much easier. Centrist Democrats were skittish in supporting or outright opposed the legislation in the face of heavy lobbying against it by business associations.
Brown’s election makes the calculus for passing the bill that much harder. The labor movement will have to find a Republican Senate vote to move forward on the bill now. Asked if that could be Brown, who is considered to have had a somewhat centrist reputation in the Massachusetts State Senate before his special election victory Tuesday, Samuel said he has not reviewed his voting record yet.
“We really don’t know the answer to that,” Samuel said, adding he would be happy to talk to Brown about the bill. “We have had a number of conversations with moderates and we will continue to do so.”
