The lessons of the EFCA battle

Tom Hamburger's EFCA story in the LAT last week looks back at how the unions have been outmaneuvered, including this interesting bit:

But once [Obama] was elected, labor leaders made a fateful decision. Originally, they had planned to keep in place their extensive network of field organizers, who had just worked to elect Democratic candidates, and ask them to build pressure on lawmakers to vote for card check.

Instead, they changed course. The labor groups scaled back, partly to give Obama time to get his bearings amid the deepening economic crisis.

Business groups, meanwhile, had started work well before the election and did not stop.

It's hard to prove what caused what. But I bet he's right that easing off Obama was indeed a fateful decision.