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TV Ads Promote Employee Free Choice Act |
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On Labor Day, the workers’ advocacy group American Rights at Work launched a national TV ad campaign to inform the public about the critical issues facing America’s struggling middle class. The ads build on the broad public support for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field and allow workers to freely decide how to choose unions so they can bargain for a better life.
The ads are part of a huge, new coordinated effort among workers’ rights advocates, progressives and the union movement to make passage of the legislation a major issue in the 2008 election. The new ads will run on national cable outlets and in states throughout the country, including Oregon, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Maine. The state ads urge viewers to call the state’s lawmakers and express support for the legislation. (See the national video.)
Not only will the Employee Free Choice Act help workers by giving them a fair and direct path to form unions, it also will help employees gain a contract in a reasonable period of time and toughen penalties for corporations that violate the law.
Says American Rights at Work Executive Director Mary Beth Maxwell:
When workers are free to choose to join a union, our economy can work for everyone again. In today’s economy, we need policies that give workers a fair shake. Our ads reinforce how the Employee Free Choice Act can restore the balance, giving men and women the freedom to form unions and get better health care, job security, and benefits—and an opportunity to pursue their dreams.
The ad campaign is setting the record straight in response to virulently anti-union, corporate-funded front groups that are misleading the American public about the Employee Free Choice Act. In state after state, deep-pocket front groups, such as the so-called Center for Union Facts and the Employee Freedom Action Committee, are running ads that assail congressional candidates for their support of the bill.
But the bill enjoys strong public support. A new Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (DMI) poll shows 68 percent of middle-class adults would have liked their representative in the U.S. House to vote for the bill. That includes 80 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of Independents polled.
Maxwell adds:
Despite the millions of dollars already spent to deceive voters on the Employee Free Choice Act, the American public isn’t buying it. The reality is a majority of Americans want policies like the Employee Free Choice Act that will help restore the middle class. These ads will show viewers the truth about this common sense policy.
For more information, click here.
Last week, the coalition previewed the campaign with billboards in Denver for the Democratic National Convention and full-page ads in Politico and USA Today.
Armed with more than a half-million signatures from the union movement’s Million-Member Mobilization, activists met with Democratic party leaders, state delegations and caucuses in Denver to promote the legislation. In just five months, more than 550,000 people have signed postcards to tell the new president and Congress that working families across America want them to enact the legislation. (Show your support for the Employee Free Choice Act by clicking here to sign our online card.)
Sen. Barack Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, have co-sponsored the bill, while Sen. John McCain voted to block a vote on it by keeping a filibuster going.
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When organized labor becomes a threat to the economic interests of the bosses, then and only then will the Employee Free Choice Act become a reality.
The old Wagner Act became law in the 1930’s because both the AFL and especially the CIO were conducting massive organizing drives and crippling strikes in vital industries! Quite naturally the bosses became fearful!
During the Clinton re-election campaign of 1996 organized labor raised $25 million for him with hope that he would lead the effort to change the unfair labor laws affecting union organizing drives. History shows nothing changed except for the hands that held the money! Our only hope is within ourselves and our willingness to engage in organized struggle!