Obama: First Healthcare, Then Card Check Forced Unionism

While some wish to believe that Card Check Forced Unionism, aka EFCA, is dead, Human Events’ John Gizzi reports that the White House disagrees:

Six days after outgoing AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told a press breakfast in Washington that the President and Vice President had assured him they would make a major push in Congress for organized labor’s cherished Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the White House confirmed it.

During the regular press briefing at the White House yesterday, I referred to Sweeney’s remarks at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast September 2 and the retiring labor chieftain’s assurance that President Obama would take up the fight for EFCA “once he gets healthcare reform.”  

“I would point you to what the President said at a rather boisterous labor rally yesterday,” replied Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, sounding a bit incredulous that I somehow overlooked an address that made headlines nationwide, “where he reiterated his support for that.” 

So does this mean, I pressed Gibbs, “he will get behind it all the way after the health care debate?”

“I’m certainly not going to stand up here and contradict the President less than 24 hours after,” Gibbs told me.