by James Parks, Jun 21, 2007

Sen. Sherrod Brown
Sen. Patty Murray
Sen. Charles Schumer

As debate on the Employee Free Choice Act continues  in the U.S. Senate, six Democratic co-sponsors of the bill took the floor to explain why this legislation is so important.

The Employee Free Choice Act (S. 1041), which was passed 241–185 in the U.S. House of Representatives in March, would allow workers to decide how they want to choose a union and would enable them to do so without employer interference. 

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) pointed out that poll after poll shows most people in this country, if presented with the opportunity, would like to join a union (see video).

He cited the case of a single mother from southwest Ohio who works full-time for $9 an hour and feeds herself and her nine-year-old son with food stamps. She runs out of money by the end of the month and makes due by feeding her son and not eating herself. Brown says:

She’s working hard, playing by the rules, doing everything we ask. My belief is that if she had the opportunity to join a union, she would receive a higher wage and health insurance—something that everyone who works in this institution [Congress] has.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said:

Now is the time to help workers by ensuring their voice is heard in the workplace for better benefits, better wages, better health care and better pensions.

Workers who do exercise their legal rights are blocked by an unbalanced system that traps them in unacceptable conditions. It’s time to make the promise of choice a reality. [See video.]

Income inequality is one of the great problems in the United States, said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)—and one of the many ways to overcome inequality is to make it easier for people to organize (see video).

This legislation is extremely important to the basic fabric of America. If we want middle-class people to continue to have wage growth and benefit growth, then unions are essential.

Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) said the Employee Free Choice Act is really about the future of America:

We know unions and the right to organize and collectively bargain helped to build America’s middle class.

What we’re doing by passing this legislation is to move into a new chapter where more and more Americans have union protection and their work and the fruits of their labor are recognized. [Click here to see video.]

And by opening the doors for more workers to seek union representation, said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.):

We’re helping to ensure a pathway to fairness and a pathway to a better quality of life. [Click here to see video.]

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told her colleagues

Unions help all workers, not just those in unions. As we go forward as a nation, unions will continue to be the friends of working men and women everywhere. When workers are systematically denied their rights to fair wages and benefits, we all lose and we need to take action. [Click here to see video.]

Murray and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) opened the debate June 19.

Click here to see if your senators are co-sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act.

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