Big labor has made some mistakes in its frenzy to get politicians to support card check, and that may be what’s behind the renewed effort to get card check in front of Congress before adjournment. Labor targeted Arkansas U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln because Lincoln, a moderate Democrat, opposed card check. She defeated the labor candidate in the June 8 primary, and she’s not likely to be a friend to unions now if she wins in November.

With unions continuing to lose membership, they should be investigating what they’re doing wrong instead of trying to change the rules so drastically that they get an unfair advantage.

The News says the argument for EFCA is undercut:

Back to Alabama, where instead of union membership declining, membership is increasing, even as unemployment continues to rise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership climbed by 10,000 workers in 2009, to a total of 181,000. The number of state residents represented by unions (they’re covered by union contracts but are not official union members) rose to 212,000, or 12 percent of all state workers.

Alabama’s percentage of union workers is more than double border states Tennessee (5.1 percent), Mississippi (4.8 percent) and Georgia (4.6 percent). Alabama’s story doesn’t help the unions make their case.
With Congress expected to become more Republican after this year’s elections, union leaders know they’re running out of time on this lousy card-check idea.

Exactly.

The latest example comes from Alabama, where the Birmingham News notes state chapter president Jay Reed’s co-leadership of the Alabama Alliance of Business Against EFCA. Check out the story (and a great editorial cartoon on the issue) by clicking here.

The card-check bill is a horrible idea in a good economy; it’s even worse in the economy we’re living in today.

And you know when it comes down to a union actually picketing itself, like the SEIU is doing, organized labor doesn’t have a clue about the reality of the current recession.

More specifically, the paper looks at its own state and finds:

Alabama’s sagging economy really doesn’t need the card-check bill. Unions have been salivating to infiltrate the state’s automobile industry. So far, they’ve not gotten very far because union bosses know any effort to organize Mercedes or Honda or Hyundai will require a secret ballot.