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USW President Gerard Sets the Record Right on Employee Free Choice Act
It’s awfully hard to find accurate and fair descriptions of unions, their leaders and issues in the mainstream media. Clichés and stereotypes that just won’t die far too often substitute for fair reporting or analysis.
That’s why yesterday’s in-depth profile of United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was so refreshing. In addition, Gerard’s appearance Friday on “Bill Moyers Journal” on PBS was a great rebuttal to the many ill-informed, slanted or just down-right lies about the Employee Free Choice Act filling the airwaves and news columns.
Post-Gazette reporter Ann Belser explores Gerard’s deep commitment to working hard for working families and the union on issues such as universal health care and getting the economy back on track.
Click here to read the profile.
On the Moyers’ show, Gerard was asked about the corporate-created, near-rabid and lie-laden anti-Employee Free Choice ads. What, Moyers asked, is the goal of these ads?
I think that there’s an appeal to fear. It’s the same kind of mentality that told us we couldn’t have a clean environment and good jobs. It’s the same kind of mentality that called Barack Obama a Socialist because he was talking about equity. It’s the kind of mentality that tries to divide the country and keep people afraid of their future. It’s based on lies and propaganda. And it’s really put together by the already rich and already very powerful who control the workplaces, who have control of the economy.
Click here for a video and full transcript of the interview in which Gerard also discusses the upcoming economic recovery package, creation of manufacturing and green jobs, the environment, trade and why Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) “is delusional or deliberately dishonest.”
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9 Comments
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Employee Free Choice Act NOW!
Martin Jay Levitt said it best when he said:
“Union busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit. A campaign against a union is an assault on individuals and a war on the truth. As such, it is a war without honor. The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack.”
Confessions of a Union Buster
by Martin Jay Levitt
For More Information on EFCA please visit our website and blog
http://www.employeefreechoiceactnow.org
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
Bravo Leo! And thank you for the support you give the movement above and beyond the call of duty. Under Mr. Gerard’s leadership the Steelworkers provide a home to Working America, the AFL-CIO Labor 2008 staff, the Southwest PA ALF, and dozens of other unions and progressive allies in search of a meeting room or helping hand in many ways.
BTW-Kudos on the Steelers Blitz with Mr. Rooney. It gave the Obama effort a real boost down the stretch.
thanks mr gerard for speaking the truth. i tried to post on jim demint’s web-page where he had the truth about card check. i said it was outright lies, and put a link to the afl-cio’s 10 key facts about the efca.
needless to say they took it down.
he’s nothing more than a union breaker
I’m tired of seeing union leaders portrayed as thugs and gangsters. We need the Employee Free Choice Act as one tool to help rebuild unions. This is where I really part company with Sean Hannity and his crowd.
Unorganized working people need the Employee Free Choice Act if they are ever going to enjoy the protections and voice that a union brings to the workplace. It is virtually impossible to make a successful simple attempt to form a union today.
Workers are out- maneuvered by well-financed anti-union campaigns that are designed to frighten them into submission. Nothing is more frightening to most working families than the loss of a job, no matter how bad the workplace conditions may be. All it takes is the firing of a couple of employees—no matter if they are connected to the organizing attempt at all—and the rest of the workers will get the message about what happens when a union comes around.
Isn’t that against the law? Yeah. But what is the remedy if it is proved that a labor law has been broken? Posting a letter in a conspicuous place?Forced rehiring, perhaps— but after much time has passed, and then under what conditions? Who wants to go back to a job where they didn’t want you in the first place after a long, long absence? How do you survive in the meantime?
Point is, our current labor laws don’t really protect workers and they don’t punish employers who violate those weak laws. Workers should be able to exercise their rights freely and without fear to improve their wages and conditions; employers should have to honor workers’ rights under the law or pay the price.
I happen to catch Leo’s interview with Moyers last week. It was great! He certainly has a way of speaking truth to power that’s genuine and unedited. Maybe it’s the Canadian in him. One point, though, that Leo made, but should have made more forcefully. Greedy corporate shills keep saying Employee Free Choice Act will eliminate the “secret ballot.” That’s flat out not true. It will strip the corporate boss of the right to say whether there should be a drawn-out union election. Instead the workers can decide how majority support for the union is determined: signing up or secret ballot. Just like those patriots in 1776 who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence.
I took-in part of Mr. Gerard’s interview with Bill Moyer. I was tremendously impressed. What I heard through his answers tells me that he’s the kind of leader that is needed by all working families. I mean that, not only for American working families, but also for workers around the World. If I were Obama, I’d involve and listen to Mr. Gerard in all discussion on global trade relations.
The last Prime Minister of Australia hand in hand with the Corporate world, took out a series of television advertisments in Austrlaia during the 2007 election campaign. They depicted 3 large burly tattoed men in jeans combat boots and braces walking into a small business and shutting out the light……this was seen to be a depiction of the return to supposed Union thuggery. These adds backfired on the corporate world and made even more people hate this man and the “economic realities” ie corporate greed that he stood for.
Let them lie just stick to the truth and the unions will win. The American people are not sheep to believe these lies.
Good work and good luck.
Ohh and by the way the outgoing president is bestowing the medel of freedom on this small minded ex prime minister of my country. This man who invaded Iraq and undertook the largest program of anti worker reform my conuntry had ever seen. Shame on George Bush for making cheap this most respected award.
Without a doubt, we need passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.