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‘Time to Do the Right Thing and Pass Employee Free Choice Act’ |
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Building trades workers in Arizona and Nevada organize for justice.
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With the U.S. House of Representatives poised to vote Thursday on the Employee Free Choice Act, working families are reaching out to deliver the message that when workers join unions, the nation benefits.
Calling the Employee Free Choice Act “the most important change in labor law in decades,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney explained in a telephone press conference today why working people need this legislation.
The single best opportunity for working women and men to get ahead economically is by coming together with their co-workers to bargain with their employer for a better life—through a union.
Recent studies show one in five employers fire at least one worker during a union organizing campaign. By the time employees get to vote, the environment has been so poisoned that free and fair choice isn’t an option. No employee has a free choice after being browbeaten by a supervisor to oppose the unions, or being told they may lose their job and livelihood if workers vote for a union.
Errol Hohrein, a boilermaker at Front Range Energy’s ethanol distillery in northern Colorado, told how he and his co-workers were intimidated, harassed and even fired after they began to try and form a union with the United Steelworkers. They were fed up, Hohrein says, after complaints about safety problems such as leaks in ammonia tanks and poor storage of chemicals fell on deaf ears.
At the same time, workers were shorted on paychecks and they were required to pay nearly half their paychecks for medical benefits, he says.
But after the workers began to try to form a union, Hohrein says, management began to intimidate workers, follow them around and they would not let other workers talk to him. Despite the employer’s tactics, the workers still chose the union—and just days after that vote, Hohrein was fired.
I’m no troublemaker. I served my country in Vietnam. I’ve worked with youth as a junior high school teacher. I have one flaw and that’s telling the truth.
Labor law in this country is broken, It doesn’t support working people. We’re on the brink and no one’s looking out for us. It’s time for the government to do the right thing and pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
University of California, Berkeley professor Harley Shaiken told the press conference that the Employee Free Choice Act would make the process of forming a union more equitable and it would strengthen the middle class.
Many Americans have read about economic growth, but they haven’t seen it in their paychecks. It’s well known the advantages of being a union worker—higher wages and benefits.
By allowing workers to make an informed decision about joining a union, the Employee Free Choice Act will make life better for millions of workers, Shaiken says, and “lead to a vibrant middle class and a vital, stable economy.”
Click here to see details of the Employee Free Choice Act.
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