Employee Free Choice Act Dead (For Now)

As many of you have probably heard by now, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would have, among other things, allowed for unions to become the exclusive bargaining representative for employees through the use of authorization cards as opposed to secret ballot elections, has failed to garner enough votes today to survive a Republican filibuster.

Although 51 Senators voted to end debate on the measure, 60 votes were needed to invoke cloture and bring the bill to a vote.  To be clear, even if the bill had been voted up by the Senate, the EFCA faced a certain veto by the President and then would have needed 67 Senators and 2/3s of the House to override that veto.

Some progress was made on the EFCA this year, but without a Democratic president and 60 Senators to support this bill, the EFCA is going nowhere fast.

PS