A year or so ago, President Clinton admonished Democrats who lamented the policies that President Bush has pursued. He certainly didn’t support Bush’s programs, but he told his fellow Democrats that they shouldn’t act surprised by Bush’s agenda. 

“He’s just doing what he said he would do in the campaign,” the former president said.

A similar telegraphing is under way by organized labor. It is laying out a crystal clear game plan it will pursue if a Democrat wins the White House and the party maintains control of the House and increases its Senate majority next November.

Corporate and senior HR executives should forgo gnashing their teeth around March 2009, when Democratic priorities for workplace legislation might be zooming through the House and perhaps the Senate too. They should be able to see it coming now.

The atmosphere in Washington could be balmy for labor in 2009. Senate Republicans likely will have a significantly reduced minority and a more limited ability to stop bills through a filibuster. More important, there could be a Democratic president sitting in the White House waiting to sign legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act.

That measure is the holy grail for the labor movement. It would force companies to recognize a union if 50 percent of workers sign cards authorizing one. No longer would a firm be able to insist on a secret-ballot election monitored by the National Labor Relations Board. In addition, it would take away the ability of a company to block a first contract and would impose penalties of $20,000 for each violation of a worker’s right to promote a union.

Labor argues that such a measure is required to bolster wages and benefits because it would level the playing field against corporations that routinely intimidate employees who try to form unions. They also assert that tens of millions of employees would join unions if the so-called card-check bill fosters a more democratic workplace.

Business groups, of course, stridently oppose the bill. They say the measure would give unions a free hand to coerce workers into joining their ranks. Republicans accuse Democrats of backing the measure because it would revive a sagging labor movement and would be repayment for labor’s help at election time.

The bill passed the House earlier this year but was filibustered by Senate Republicans.

This measure is such a priority for unions that they are trying to get the whole world behind it. The AFL-CIO brought to Washington this week more than 200 union leaders from 63 countries. Ostensibly, the event focused on ways that labor could reach across borders in the same way that international corporations do.

Participants no doubt spent a lot of time mulling strategy and tactics for obtaining a higher quality of life for their members. But the public portions of the event focused almost exclusively on domestic U.S. politics, specifically the card-check bill.

As you can read in the story I filed Wednesday, December 12, international unions were as passionate about the bill as their U.S. counterparts, saying that its approval would bolster organizing around the world:

“Global Unions Unite to Fight ‘Lawless’ U.S. Corporations”

In a moment that caused cognitive dissonance, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the following comment at the forum: “This is not a political event. This is an event about American workers and workers around the world.”

With all due respect to the speaker, it absolutely was a political event. And it wasn’t just American politicians who were calling for U.S. voters to elect more House and Senate members who would approve the card-check bill.

Sharan Burrow, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said that a conservative government had been thrown out in her country this year and replaced by one more sympathetic to workers and unions.

She urged U.S. voters to do the same next year.

“No politician deserves to get elected if they’re not [going] to support rights of working people and their families,” she said. If a new Congress and president make the card-check bill a law, “you will grow the American economy with dignity.”

Pelosi implied that the political situation in Washington is not quite at that point, but it is close.

“The leverage in Congress is now with working people,” she said. “With one more election, we’ll have enough power to make a substantial difference.”

The business community—and the whole world—can see it coming.