Since both Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) announced their opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, a lot of debate has been centered on whether or not the bill has any chance of passing in the current Congress.

Obviously, counting votes is an important exercise, but lost in the brouhaha has been the justification for labor law reform. Fortunately, Mother Jones’ Josh Harkinson gave us a refresher course, courtesy of Whole Foods:

Shortly before the inauguration of President Barack Obama, the manager of a Whole Foods grocery store in the San Francisco Bay Area gathered his employees in a conference room for a chat about labor organizing. [...] According to a tape of the meeting obtained by Mother Jones, the manager went on to imply that joining a union would lead to reprisals: “It’s interesting to note that once you become represented by the union,” he said, “basically everything, every benefit you have, is kind of thrown out the window, and you renegotiate a contract.”

Essentially, the manager is implying that a legal decision to unionize would result in the company removing the workers’ benefits during contract negotiations. This is the sort of fearmongering that the Employee Free Choice Act is meant to address. And it’s by no means an isolated incident, as plenty of employers stall, delay, and intimidate workers during and after organizing drives. Consider:

- It took meat cutters at a Texas Wal-Mart nine years after they voted to form a union to begin negotiations with the company.

- Employees at a Rite-Aid drug warehouse in California voted more than one year ago to form a union, but Rite-Aid is trying to run out the clock so that it can “stop the pretense of negotiating” and then “try to undo” the workers’ vote.

- In December, Starbucks was found to have “illegally fired three baristas and otherwise violated federal labor laws in seeking to beat back unionization efforts at several of its Manhattan cafes.”

- On March 31, 2007, workers at the Trump Casino in Atlantic City, NJ, voted to form a union. They still have no contract.

There is an undeniable need to repair a broken system for workers, both in forming a union and ensuring good faith negotiations with employers afterward. A few Senators backing down in the face of business pressure doesn’t change that.

Politico reported today that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) “has given housing advocates two weeks to find a compromise that would win 60 votes for a long-stalled proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages”:

“So we get back here [after a two-week spring break], we’re either there or we’re not there,” Dodd said. “We have to move along on these things.” When asked if that meant he was willing to drop the bankruptcy provision, Dodd hedged. “Well, I’m not saying that,” he said. “I’m going to think optimistically.”

This sounds eerily similar to Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) announcement that he would “drop a cram-down provision from a House-passed banking bill if the language threatened to keep the Senate from passing the overall bill.”

Reportedly, “moderate Democrats” consider the current language “too generous in terms of who could access bankruptcy for foreclosure relief.” But we’ve noted time and again how important it is that cram-down legislation is passed. And just last week, that case was bolstered by data showing that mortgage modifications — comprising half of the Obama administration’s effort to stem foreclosures — are hitting roadblocks and not actually lowering homeowners’ mortgage payments.

Thankfully, a proposal “to limit the bankruptcy option to subprime mortgages only” has been labeled “a non-starter” by cram-down’s main supporters, Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY). This attempt to restrict cram-downs to certain types of loans denies the extent of the housing crisis and doesn’t alter the current unfair nature of bankruptcy law.

In any case, Dodd’s reason for laying out a deadline — and therefore signaling his willingness to pass a bankruptcy bill that has nothing at all to do with bankruptcy — is unclear. There has been intense, behind-the-scenes lobbying against cram-downs, with the American Bankers Association, the Credit Union National Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America “involved in the talks,” but that opposition has been there all along and isn’t going away. Ultimately, cram-downs are a necessary part of the response to the housing crisis — a crisis that we haven’t yet adequately addressed.