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What’s It Like to Try to Form a Union? Political Candidates Find Out |
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Maggie Nielsen and her co-workers just want to join a union. But like millions of other workers, they have to endure a war with their employer to exercise that basic freedom.
Nielsen, an emergency room nurse at Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago, part of the largest Catholic health care chain in Illinois, says:
Catholic social teachings are clear: Employees should be able to form a union free from intimidation and fear. So when we began talking to each other about forming a union [with AFSCME], you would think Resurrection would follow Catholic teachings. But they didn’t.
They have fired eight union supporters. Just last November, I was handing out union leaflets during my break. The supervisor in charge of the entire hospital in the evenings approached me and told me to stop. She said I was not allowed to hand out union literature at the hospital. Period.
In July, AFSCME filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming Resurrection violated federal labor law.
Firing workers for seeking to form a union is illegal under U.S. labor law, but in some 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union.
Nielsen was part of a panel of workers who explained the realities of trying to form a union to some 25 congressional candidates during a candidate briefing today at the AFL-CIO building in Washington, D.C.
Another worker seeking to form a union, Mahelio Rico, was fired after he started helping his co-workers join the Sheet Metal Workers in Phoenix. The air-conditioning installer said that as soon as he began helping organize his fellow workers, “The boss started to target me to try to get me to quit.”
They gave me harder work, the bigger houses in the summer when it’s 110 degrees outside and too hot to do big jobs. They gave me unsafe trucks to drive—loaded trucks with bad brakes. They took my shift away, so I wasn’t getting the paycheck I was expecting.
The boss did everything they could to get me to quit, but when that didn’t work, they fired me.
They had no real reason to fire me. In fact, the union filed charges, and the only reason they could give for firing me was that I was late one day. They say I stole one hour from them. That’s nothing compared to what they stole from us.
Making sure workers have the freedom to join a union is one of the major issues in the union movement’s 2006 get-out-the-vote efforts, AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff told participants. He urged the candidates to support the Employee Free Choice Act, which would:
- Allow employees to freely choose whether to form unions by signing cards authorizing representation.
- Provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
- Establish stronger penalties for violations of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
Another worker on the panel, Peter Braunston, discussed the ease with which he joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA) while working for Cingular Wireless in suburban Philadelphia—an experience that highlights how the Employee Free Choice Act could benefit working people.
Cingular has an agreement with CWA not to interfere in union campaigns, and management did not try to stop Braunston from joining the union. The process by which he joined CWA—signing a card—is the same as that in the Employee Free Choice Act, which would enable workers to freely form unions.
Braunston says that since he joined the union his pay has increased, while his health care expenses have drastically decreased and he now has a stable income to support his family. He says he and his co-workers:
…are thrilled that we joined a union. We now have a voice in our destiny and are able to realize better wages through organization.
AFL-CIO Politics and Field Director Karen Ackerman told the candidates, all endorsed by AFL-CIO state federations:
It is critically important for all Americans to have strong unions. When union density is up, good things happen for the country. Working men and women, union and nonunion, need decent health care and good jobs. When unions are strong, they fight for these things.
Ackerman told the candidates the AFL-CIO union movement is working in dozens of congressional districts to educate and mobilize union families as part of its Labor 2006 initiative to elect candidates who will stand up for working family issues.
(Click here to register to vote, access state-by-state issues guides, download candidate comparison leaflets and more. Union members who want to volunteer for walks and other get-out-the-vote actions should click here to sign up.)
In closing remarks, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) urged the candidates to remember who put them in office when they get to Washington:
We say we value people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but we don’t reward them. When you have that victory under your belt and you come to Washington, you will have an opportunity to give a voice to those who have been shut out by the Republicans. Don’t forget they are depending on you.
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