In his January 7 Conde Nast Portfolio column about the “coming war” over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), Matthew Cooper wrote that "[p]olitical veteran Mark McKinnon, a former media adviser to George W. Bush, says he's 'never seen business this fired up.' " But Cooper did not identify McKinnon as a spokesperson for an organization opposing the legislation. As Media Matters for America has noted, McKinnon is a spokesman for the Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI), an organization whose website states that it “is funded by and advocates on behalf of business owners” and is "[c]urrently ... focused on educating the public on the damaging effects of the deceptively named 'Employee Free Choice Act' or 'card check.' "

Media Matters previously noted that The Washington Post's Michael A. Fletcher quoted McKinnon criticizing the EFCA without identifying him as a spokesman for WFI. The Post subsequently ran the following correction: “This article about planned legislation to make it easier to organize unions should have identified political consultant Mark McKinnon as a spokesman for the Workforce Fairness Institute, which opposes the measure.”

From Cooper's January 7 column:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is calling the coming war over the bill “Armageddon.” Such corporate titans as former General Electric head Jack Welch, outgoing Wal-Mart C.E.O. Lee Scott, and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus are denouncing it. At the World Business Forum, Welch was apoplectic: “If business leaders are not aware of this terrible piece of legislation, they should be. It would hurt us dramatically in our ability to be competitive globally.” Political veteran Mark McKinnon, a former media adviser to George W. Bush, says he's “never seen business this fired up.”

On the other side, Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, tells me the legislation “is essential for workers to be able to share in the wealth of their employers.” Stern matters, and he will continue to matter during the Obama administration. With 2 million members, the S.E.I.U. is the largest and fastest-growing union in North America, and its endorsement of Obama gave the first-term senator's campaign a big lift during the Democratic primaries in 2008.