Our guest blogger is Seth Michaels, Online Communications Coordinator at the AFL-CIO.

Today, the New York Times reported that a half-dozen senators have decided to drop the majority sign-up provision of the Employee Free Choice Act in favor of a requirement for “shorter unionization campaigns and faster elections”:

Several moderate Democrats, including Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, have voiced opposition to card check, convinced that elections were a fairer way for workers to unionize. They were swayed partly by business’s vigorous campaign, arguing that card check would remove confidentiality from unionization drives and enable union organizers to bully workers into signing union cards.

You have to read almost to the end of the Times piece before learning that lawmakers continue to discuss various details of the bill — it’s not a done deal. There are details to be worked out in the legislative process, and meaningful labor law reform must include the three principles underlying the Employee Free Choice Act:

– Workers must have a free choice and a fair path to choose to form a union, free from intimidation.

– Real penalties must exist for employers who break the law.

– Workers who choose a union must be able to get a fair first contract

– Companies must not be able to engage in endless delays and stalling tactics to deny workers a collective bargaining agreement.

With President Obama’s backing — reiterated on Monday — and the support of the majority in Congress, this is the year to pass the most significant labor law reform since the 1930s. And let’s not forget that 73 percent of the public supports the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field for workers seeking to form unions.

The reason for such support is understandable. Corporate abuses are all too common, and companies can act with impunity against employees who are trying to form unions. Workers who try to exercise their basic freedom to form a union are faced with mandatory meetings, threats of wage or benefit cuts, threats of firings or plant closings and even illegal firings, because of weak law and negligible penalties. That matters to the lives of workers across the country. And even when workers do get through the company-dominated process, more than half wait more than a year for a first contract, and nearly one-third don’t have a contract two years later.

The Employee Free Choice Act has earned the support of small businesses, faith groups, civil rights groups, leading economists and a wide variety of community organizations, who all agree that a strong, progressive country with a healthy economy depends on the ability of workers to bargain for a fair share. Three-quarters of Americans support legislation to make it easier for workers to bargain collectively.

We can and will pass meaningful labor law reform this year. America’s workers can’t wait.

Early this morning, the House Ways and Means committee approved a health care bill that would implement a surtax on the richest Americans as a way of financing reform. Conservatives have seized on reports calculating what the top tax rate would be if the House’s bill becomes law to lament the plight of the richest one percent of Americans who stand to have their taxes raised. For instance, Fox New’s Megyn Kelly lit into Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) today, claiming that this “astronomical” top rate will lead us down a slippery slope to 70 or 80 percent tax rates. “Where do you draw the line? Does 60 percent not shock the conscience?” she asked. Watch it:

Clint Stretch, a tax expert at Deloitte Tax, was quoted by USA Today saying that the House bill will push tax rates for the very wealthiest to “levels never seen,” so I think this all needs to be put into perspective. As I pointed out yesterday, the surtax would have no impact on 98.7 percent of Americans. The one percent that are affected received $715 billion in tax breaks from the Bush tax cuts, while the surtax will raise $544 billion. So this isn’t even going to make up for the massive tax cuts that this tiny population received from Bush.

Furthermore, while the top one percent’s overall share of income has been skyrocketing, its effective tax burden has been falling. Consider this chart, from Conor Clarke:

From 1950 to 1963, the top federal marginal income tax rate was 91 percent. It was in the 70′s until 1980 (albeit, different amounts of income were subject to the top rate). Even if the health care surtax is enacted, the Social Security payroll cap is lifted, and the Bush tax cuts expire in 2011, the rich would be paying 45 percent in federal income taxes. Meanwhile, after-tax income for the 95 percent of Americans who just received a tax cut courtesy of the stimulus package will not go up at all.