Here’s Why Employee Free Choice Act Must Pass

by James Parks, Jun 7, 2007

Employee Free Choice Act would help workers like Tom Gallagher, whose employer stalled bargaining for two years.

The Allentown (Pa.) City Council passed a resolution last month supporting the Employee Free Choice Act, and Mayor Ed Pawlowski will add an exclamation point today to the importance of the bill.

Pawlowski will announce at a press conference that the council passed a resolution May 16 calling on the state’s two senators, Robert Casey (D) and Arlen Specter (R), to vote to pass this historic legislation.

During this National Call-In Week, working families will make thousands of phone calls to urge uncommitted senators such as Specter to back the act and thank those like Casey who are supporting it. The U.S. House passed the Employee Free Choice Act in March and the Senate is expected to take it up this month.

Gregg Potter, president of the Lehigh Valley Labor Council, says:

America is becoming a country of “haves and have nots.” Parents need to work two and three jobs to provide for their families and still don’t have a chance for a better life. The best ticket out of economic despair is a union card. 

The Employee Free Choice would ensure workers such as Tom Gallagher in Philadelphia get a fair shake on the job. Gallagher, who has spent 33 years as an engineering technician for PECO, tried to form a union with his co-workers in 2004. Although they held strong through a vicious anti-union campaign run by a consulting firm PECO hired, the company has stalled on scheduling bargaining meetings and negotiating their first contract—and two years later, still do not have a first contract. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, employers would have to negotiate within a reasonable time frame.

More than 40 state and local bodies have passed similar resolutions supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. The local resolutions are important, AFL-CIO President John Sweeny says, because  

local officials have seen firsthand the community-wide 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.

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