President-elect Barack Obama did not stop campaigning on Monday, November 3. After he cast a vote for himself in his Chicago precinct on Election Day, he traveled next door to Indiana for one last push.

While in Indianapolis, he visited a United Auto Workers union hall, where volunteers were making get-out-the-vote calls on his behalf. Obama picked up a phone and participated himself.
 
Obama ended up winning Indiana by about 26,000 votes. He was the first Democrat since President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to carry the state.

The help Obama got from organized labor in Indiana was replicated in other Midwestern battleground states. In fact, the AFL-CIO was quick to take credit for being the “firewall” that helped Obama secure Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

At a post-election press conference, AFL-CIO leaders made it clear that they were going to push hard for their top priority, the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make unionization easier. It was stymied by a Senate filibuster last year—and would have been vetoed by President Bush if it had gotten through. 

Unions are stoked about Obama winning the White House and Democrats increasing their majorities on Capitol Hill. They can taste victory on the so-called card-check bill.

“The environment for promoting the labor agenda is going to be as good as it can be,” says Steve Raetzman, a senior consultant at Watson Wyatt Worldwide in Arlington, Virginia.

Unions argue that company intimidation prevents workers from organizing and bargaining for higher wages and better benefits. The card-check bill is anathema to the business community, which says that it would foster union strong-arming.

Obama’s Election Night victory speech gives business hope that he might listen to their misgivings. Here are the lines that warm their hearts: “And to those whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”

Groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers are urging Obama and Capitol Hill Democrats not to put the card-check bill at the top of the legislative agenda and ram it through.

They say the fight that would erupt in the Senate, where there likely will be just enough Republicans to make a filibuster possible, is not a good way to start a relationship between business and the Obama administration.

They also assert that the union bill would not help the country recover from what is now likely a recession. They say it would add to the cost of doing business.

Supporters of the card-check bill say it would give employees the leverage they need to get their fair share of productivity gains and the corporate profits that soared—prior to the downturn—while their wages stagnated.

This debate will give Obama an opportunity to demonstrate that he is an agent of change. If Obama can forge a compromise between management and labor on the card-check bill, it might be a harbinger of cooperation between the normally warring sides.

Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, seemed to indicate that Obama is looking for the middle ground on many issues. “Our challenge is to work to solve the actual problems that the country is facing, not work to satisfy any constituency or ideological wing of the party,” Emanuel said in a Wall Street Journal interview.

But it’s too early for companies to breathe a sigh of relief about the union bill. It’s likely to be approved in some form. Besides, they still need to address the underlying problem: Helping employees cope better with the harsh realities of the global economy.

“After a generation of spending millions (billions?) on union-busting consultants, anti-union lobbying, and anti-union PR, executives might find it a better investment to use such funds to proactively address workers’ concerns regarding wages, benefits and working conditions,” Skip Mendler, a consultant and a Workforce Management reader, wrote to me in response to a story about the union bill.