Over the weekend, three retailers, aided by Clintonista Lanny Davis, floated an alternative to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). They nixed the idea of doing away with the secret ballot as well as the proposal for mandatory government arbitration, but they did recycle some language about helping unions organize (e.g. give them access to the employer’s property, shorten the time for election, etc.).

Not unexpectedly, Davis gets no buy-in from Big Labor or business groups. Making clear he’s not interested in any variation of the plan that will take away the secret ballot or impose mandatory arbitration, he nevertheless claims support from 20 senators — who probably see the thin gruel he is peddling as a way to get both sides off their backs.

This sort of approach reminds me of the lyric from My Fair Lady –“so rather than do either you do something else that neither likes at all.” I don’t see Davis’s idea going anywhere. Big Labor can’t possibly cave in this quickly and employers who think they are winning the PR battle have no reason to compromise right now. The pro-EFCA check-forces, having discovered just how negative the three retailers were, have gone mum on the retailers’ proposed compromise.