A Second Obama Administration’s Impact On Labor And Employment Issues

With the re-election of Barack Obama and the prospect of continued political gridlock at the congressional level, the administration will likely turn to regulatory and administrative avenues in an effort to pursue workplace policy goals. The landscape is very different than it was just four short years ago.

Union Organizing

President Obama devoted almost no political capital to organized labor's top legislative priority four years ago, which was passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The main thrust of EFCA was to enable unions to be certified as a bargaining representative without a secret ballot based on a check of signed authorization cards from a majority of eligible employees. EFCA would also have imposed deadlines for the negotiation of an initial collective bargaining agreement and required arbitration of initial contract terms if the parties did not reach agreement. The Republican conquest of the House of Representatives in 2010 doomed EFCA and it