This kind of slipped under the radar screen–but it’s a small sign that makes me skeptical that the Employee Free Choice Act will ever pass. In a small brief, The New York Times reported an Associated Press story that said:

Democratic leaders in Congress said they had dropped their demand for union bargaining rights for airport screeners in the hope of reviving anti-terrorism legislation that had stalled because of a presidential veto threat.

    On the website of the American Federation of Government Employees, which was seeking to represent the screeners, the union’s president, John Gage, posted a letter:

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Through your courage and hard work, the legislative campaign for Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) had made labor history in the earliest days of the 110th Congress. For the first time ever, as part of the 9-11 Commission bill, bipartisan majorities of both the House and the Senate voted to grant TSOs the same fundamental right to collective bargaining that other federal workers enjoy.

However, as news of this bipartisan action reached the White House, President Bush threatened to veto the 9-11 bill because it contained basic workplace rights for TSOs. Many Republican lawmakers announced they would vote to sustain a Presidential veto. Then before this could even happen, Senate Republicans opposed a routine request by the Democratic Leader to send the bill to conference. Because of Senate procedure, overcoming this obstacle would have taken 60 votes, which we do not have. As a result of this and other obstructionist maneuvers, the TSO worker protection language was stripped from the 9-11 bill.

To be absolutely clear: it was the Democratic leadership of both the House and Senate that supported AFGE’s efforts to change the law which denies you fair treatment and a true voice at work. Without the slight shift in power in Congress last fall, we would never have gotten as far in the campaign for these rights as we have. We – you, your co-workers and your union – have nothing to regret as we have only begun what we’ve always known would be a 12-round fight.

    So, simply because of a threat to tank the “anti-terrorism” bill, the Democrats stripped out the union rights for airport screeners. My thoughts on this are two-fold. First, it means that the Democratic leadership still does not have to internal backbone to say the workplace rights of our people here is really a true national security issue–if you can’t make a decent living and have dignity at work, what kind of domestic society are we building?

    Second, if the Democratic Party does not view EFCA as a priority, why do we think that the party leadership will not cave down the road when EFCA comes up again? Even imagine a scenario where a Democrat sits in the White House–why are we so certain that the party will make this a make-or-break fight and promise to shut down the Senate (which is where the logjam exists for the legislation), if the Republican minority (and it only takes 41 of them) digs in its heels? Count me as skeptical.