Democrat loss a political setback for union rights in US‏

The long running campaign of trade unions to secure labour reforms in the US has suffered a serious setback following the Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate election - which left the Democrats one short of the 60 seats required to prevent Republican filibustering of pro union legislation.

The US unions have been campaigning hard during Obama’s first year in office to hold him to his campaign commitment to bring in an Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
http://unisonactive.blogspot.com/2010/01/us-unions-in-battle-over-labour-rights.html

In a bleak assessment of recent developments Steve Early, writing in Counterpunch, says:

"EFCA is, of course, a long-overdue set of amendments to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) that would help boost organizing and bargaining in the private sector. The latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor show why EFCA is necessary, if not entirely sufficient, for a union revival. Organized labor in private industry lost 10 per cent of its membership in 2009, mainly in manufacturing and construction--the worst annual decline in the last quarter century......

Now trade unionists are seeing the latest opportunity to strengthen workplace rights, as promised by the Democrats, simply vanish. As one dismayed union official in Washington, D.C. told me: “It’s the end of labor law reform for another generation.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/early01292010.html