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Million-Member Mobilization Tops 800,000 |
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The union movement’s Million-Member Mobilization to get 1 million signatures supporting the Employee Free Choice Act has nearly reached its goal. With just over 30 days to go before the November elections, some 822,500 people have signed cards and petitions calling on the new Congress to immediately pass and the new president to sign the legislation when they take office in 2009.
The Mine Workers (UMWA) and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) are the latest unions to exceed their goals for members supporting the bill. Between them, the two unions collected 20,000 signatures—11,000 for CNA/NNOC and 9,000 for UMWA.
The need for the bill is clear, says UMWA President Cecil Roberts.
The right to organize has been systematically stripped away from American workers over the last eight years. This assault has been especially vicious in America’s coalfields, where coal operators have created a climate of fear and intimidation that harkens back to the company town days of the early 20th century.
Our members know all too well what that means for working families, and we’re going to do all we can to turn that around. Passing the Employee Free Choice Act is the key to doing just that.
The legislation would allow workers to freely choose how they want to form a union. (You can show your support for the Employee Free Choice Act by clicking here to sign our online card.)
Employers are waging increasingly vicious campaigns against workers who attempt to form a union to gain better working conditions. Currently, the employer decides how workers can choose to join a union, and management almost always picks the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process. The lag between gathering enough cards to file for an election and the election itself creates weeks in which professional “union-busters” can infiltrate a workplace, intimidating, misleading and harassing workers into voting against unionization.
When the new Congress comes to Washington, the cards and petitions from UMWA and CNA/NNOC and other unions will be presented to the congressional leadership and displayed in the U.S. Capitol to show the massive support for the Employee Free Choice Act, which gives workers the choice of how they want to form a union.
CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro says:
Registered nurses know the importance of having a union in the workplace on the job. Across the country, hospital administrators try to hold down costs by cutting back on nursing staff, which jeopardizes patient care. When nurses try to improve the situation by joining a union, we often suffer employer intimidation and threats.
Our patients deserve the best care and that can only come with a union contract. Right now, the deck is stacked in favor of the employer, and the Employee Free Choice Act will restore balance in the workplace and give nurses a say in patient care.
In a recent commentary, Julius Getman, a University of Texas law professor, says extremists, like columnist George Will, who complain that the Employee Free Choice Act would undermine workers’ rights, just don’t get it.
What is inherently coercive is the NLRB representation process that precedes the secret ballot. It is a system that permits employers to deliver, over and over, captive audience speeches intended to increase fear and which give the union no right to respond. In addition, the system provides no adequate remedy for employers’ unfair labor practices such as threats and discriminatory discharges.
The law says that once a union obtains recognition, an employer may not make unilateral changes in wages and working conditions without bargaining with the union. The Employee Free Choice Act does not change that.
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