BNA's Daily Labor Report  (subscription required) today featured a piece on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's concerns about the major push underway by organized labor to overhaul federal labor laws.  Two Chamber officials spoke with reporters on June 5 about the dozens of "anti-employer" bills awaiting action in Congress -- among them, the grand prize, the Employee Free Choice Act. 

Randel K. Johnson, chamber vice president of labor, immigration, and employee benefits said the bills add up to "nothing less than a radical rewrite of the nation's labor laws."  Steven J. Law, chamber chief legal officer and general counsel, said congressional Democrats want to "europeanize" labor laws, and told reporters that organized labor has invested between $400 million and $500 million "in politics this year."

Proving they have not lost their flair for irony, union interests provided the following quotables in the article's conclusion:

Galen Munroe, spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said the chamber "has long been on the attack against working Americans." ... Of the chamber's assertion that the unions have invested nearly a half billion dollars "in politics" this year, Munroe said, "I wouldn't comment on something they pulled out of their hat."

Immediately followed by this nugget from Bill Samuel, AFL-CIO director of government affairs:

... the unions "spend far less than business does on lobbying ... like by 20 to one or 25 to one."