President Obama announced that the Employee Free Choice Act’s controversial “card check” provision lacks the Congressional votes to push the measure over the top. That doesn’t mean the EFCA is dead, however.

The president has offered a compromise  version of the EFCA bill without card check — the controversial provision obligating employers to recognize unions after a majority of workers have signed cards, rather than after an election.

And now-democratic Sen. Arlen Specter — who had opposed EFCA and card check — said that he’d support a compromise EFCA bill with no card-check provision. On top of that, Specter has said he’ll support bill provisions that:

• speed up union elections
• allow employees to campaign at their work sites without retaliation, and
• impose stiffer penalties on employers who violate of labor-organizing rights.

So any final bill is likely to be tougher on employers than existing legislation, and won’t exactly be EFCA-lite.