There is a bubbling concern among officials in the labor community that Barack Obama will not act on their most cherished legislative item within the next year.
The president's support for the Employee Free Choice Act has been public for some time now. But there have been a series of subtle hints in recent weeks and days that have officials worried the president isn't too keen on moving quickly to pass the measure -- which would make it easier for unions to organize. Among other things, the act would allow employees to sign authorization cards to form a union rather than go through an election process.
Obama gave an interview to the Washington Post shortly before his inauguration in which he discussed his broad support for EFCA, but cautioned that "in terms of time table, if we are losing half a million jobs a month then there are no jobs to unionize."
In private, labor officials were concerned by the remarks and reached out to the Obama team for some form of clarification. They received a modicum of relief when the entire transcript was made public, showing far more solid support for the measure. But no statement was issued from Obama's team.
A few days later, however, it was noticed that all mention of EFCA had been removed from the White House website, causing another wave of confusion and concern.
"Everyone backed off Washington Post criticism once they saw full interview transcript, where it sounded different," said a labor source. "But the website now has people worried again. Is it another 'mistake' or is this part of a pattern, is the question."
Another major labor figure said he was confident in Obama's commitment to passing EFCA, but he worried that the president felt he had labor's support whether or not he acted quickly. In this vein, he hinted, talks of a merger among major union forces would serve a secondary purpose: getting some attention from the executive branch.
Denise Mitchell, a spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO, downplayed the notion that anything other than political prudence was driving talks of merger.
"I think the talks are much more an outgrowth of a series of dynamics that have been developing for a year or more, she told the Huffington Post. "There is a sense from many of the unions, actually, that we need to figure this thing out and reunite ... People just realized, ok, now we are in charge and this is hard. The other thing that is happening is we are working so closely on EFCA, that it is also bringing people closer together. Then you see an Obama administration and you look at what is possible and you say, 'You know, we all need to be on the same page.'"
But in the process of downplaying concerns about the White House, Mitchell did acknowledge that such concerns did exist.
"We have been working with the [Obama team] and the transition team, for the most part, is largely people going into the administration, we have been working with them seamlessly," she said. "I think some people are getting rattled easily, or maybe there are people not as close to the discussion who are speculating. I can't really say where [the concerns] are coming from."