The Obama Team’s Other Lost Election

[Geee]

Weekly Standard:

President Obama has done more favors, more often, for organized labor than any other president, outpacing even FDR and Harry Truman in the lightning speed with which he has rushed to fulfill the union agenda. Calling Obama pro-union is putting it mildly.

AP / Erik S. Lesser
His paybacks to unions have come in every conceivable form: appointments, executive orders, legislation, bailouts, regulations, policy changes (notably at the Department of Labor), protectionism. Most recently, the Obama administration renegotiated the trade pact with South Korea, in part to gain the approval of the United Auto Workers (UAW).

But Obama has failed to cajole Congress into enacting organized labor’s fondest dream, the elimination of the secret ballot in union organizing elections. He hasn’t, however, given up trying to make it easier for unions to organize workplaces and industries and more difficult for employers to resist. That’s a fundamental Obama policy.

Which brings us to the case of Delta Airlines. The Obama administration stacked the deck in favor of two unions, the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), in a series of elections this fall after Delta acquired Northwest Airlines. There was a lot at stake.