EFCA supporters continue to tinker with the legislation in order to secure the 60 votes necessary to invoke cloture.

Card check continues to be a tough sell. Several Democratic senators have expressed opposition to or serious reservations concerning elimination of the secret ballot in union elections. The primary alternatives to card check recently discussed include quickie elections (elections conducted within fewer than 21 days from the filing of a representation petition, as opposed to the current median of 38 days), “equal access” (increased access by union organizers to employees on company premises and/or via company e-mail/intranet systems), and expanded use of mail-ballot elections.

Each of the alternatives bears infirmities that render it only marginally less objectionable than card check. Their ostensible virtue is that they don’t eliminate the secret ballot — the feature of the present draft that has provided EFCA opponents with their most powerful talking point.

Mail-ballot elections are currently used by the NLRB in the relatively rare circumstances where employee work schedules or dispersed work locations make traditional ballot-box elections impractical. As with card check, mail-ballot elections have the potential for party interference and compromised confidentiality. Moreover, participation rates have been lower in mail-ballot elections than in elections conducted at the workplace.

Some EFCA proponents are advocating the use of phone and internet balloting as well. Each of these mechanisms raises at least as many concerns as mail balloting.

EFCA supporters have been conducting nearly daily events to press for passage of the bill. A few days ago, Senator Harkin declared that there would be an EFCA vote before the end of the year. Senate leadership, however, did not confirm this. Given that health-care reform should dominate the summer and early fall, it seems unlikely EFCA will be brought up sooner than late fall.