More Local Governments Back Employee Free Choice Act

by Mike Hall, May 31, 2007

Yesterday, we posted the words of Mine Workers Vice President Ed Yankovich urging working family activists to take the battle for the Employee Free Choice Act to the local level. Today, we have four new victories to announce.

The four resolutions passed by city lawmakers in Miami and North Bay Village, Fla., Malden, Mass., and Reading, Pa., call on Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice. That brings to 40 the number of city, county and state legislative bodies saying it’s time to put the choice of joining a union in the hands of workers, not employers.

G. Fred Shaeff Jr., president of the United Labor Council of Reading & Berks County, says it’s in the best economic interests of communities to weigh in on the Employee Free Choice Act:

Passage of this legislation is the most important step we can take in giving the working people of Reading the tools they need to improve their living standards and their communities. A union card is the single best ticket into the middle class and in strengthening the economies of our cites and towns.

Just last week, the City of Miami Commission followed the example of the Miami-Dade County Commission when it passed a resolution supporting the act and declared May 24 as Employee Free Choice Act Day in the city. Members from about a dozen unions in Miami, which include some 30,000 union members, packed the hearing room and applauded when Mayor Manny Diaz signed the proclamation.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says local support for the Employee Free Choice Act is growing because:

Local officials see firsthand the communitywide harm done by stagnant wages, skyrocketing personal debt, and out-of-control health care costs. These elected leaders know that a union contract is the best economic uplift program for working people in our nation’s history and are brave enough to tell the U.S. Congress that it’s time to take action.

We will keep you posted on the progress of the more than 40 other state and local resolutions pending across the nation.

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