With the Senate vote-arama commencing this afternoon on the health reform fixes in the reconciliation bill, the AFL-CIO is telling Senators to vote no on any and all amendments – including the public option if it’s introduced.

While unions are pressuring Lynch to support the bill despite the excise tax, it’s clear that at least union member voters in Massachusetts do not want to have their health care plans taxed; those that fear such a tax flocked to the Republican candidate. My guess is that Stephen Lynch is looking at these numbers and making a calculated decision that he’ll stick with the voters on this one.

The AFL-CIO voted to endorse the health care bill despite the increase in the excise tax on all affected health care plans. Additionally, the Merkeley Amendment to require employers in high-risk jobs like construction to provide health insurance was removed from the bill because it wouldn’t impact the budget. Obama apparently promised to pass that bill separately. Good luck with that.

The Change to Win labor federation has unsurprisingly backed the health care bill, even with the increased excise tax on middle class health care plans. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO’s Executive Committee is still discussing its support for the bill with the increased tax.

This is frankly rather amazing in that totally-saw-it-coming way. We’ve been waiting for days to see the CBO score to see how much the final health care bill will cost, with the goals being to both reduce the deficit and to fit under the arbitrary $900 billion cap posed by Obama.

It seems they’ve been unable to do so, as Ben Smith now reports that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is on his way to the White House to discuss plans by Democrats to actually raise the tax on middle class health care plans in order to pay for the bill.

Last week at TheNation.com, writer John Nichols took the AFL-CIO to task for filing an amicus brief in support of Citizens United in its Supreme Court case. I quoted Nichols at length in my original piece on the labor movement and the Citizens United ruling. On Friday, the AFL-CIO pushed back

The collective reaction to the State of the Union from the labor movement seems to be, “Let’s see what you’ve got, Obama.” Leaders from across the movement commended the President for his speech and his agenda, with a collective focus on jobs as the takeaway from the speech. But with a notable exception: International Association of Machinists President Tom Buffenbarger unloads on Obama for a lack of specifics on jobs.

Two major AFL-CIO unions, the Communication Workers of America (CWA), with the United Auto Workers (UAW) came out hard against Citizens United, joining National Nurses United from the AFL in opposing the decision.

John Nichols has an interesting piece over at The Nation about the fallout from last week’s Citizens United decision from the Supreme Court. It’s a pretty brutal take on the thinking that lead the AFL-CIO to file an amicus brief supporting unlimited corporate spending.

A post-election poll by the AFL-CIO shows that more Massachusetts union members voted for Republican Scott Brown than Democrat Martha Coakley in what the labor federation dubs a “working class revolt.” Union members supported Brown over Coakley by 49%-46%.