Global Unions Will Help Push Employee Free Choice

by Seth Michaels, Jan 14, 2009

Yesterday at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., union leaders from 45 different countries met with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and representatives of U.S. union organizations to discuss the union movement in the United States and the need to work together to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s an exciting chance for global cooperation in the fight to preserve workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.

Union leaders, representing countries from across the world—Australia, Turkey, Argentina, Italy, Ghana, Sweden and Indonesia, just to name a few—took part in a discussion of the critical issues facing America’s workers.

Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), an confederation of more than 300 unions from 155 countries, said the freedom to form a union and bargain for better wages and benefits is a basic human right, one that needs to be protected in every country. Union leaders around the world often are shocked, Ryder said, at how workers in the United States are prevented from exercising this freedom. 

It comes as a surprise to see how many obstacles stand in the way of working people…violations of these fundamental rights are very serious in this country. 

This is about the respect of internationally recognized human rights—nothing more, nothing less. It’s essential for effective economic recovery and a durable and just course for future development…what happens in this country matters around the world.

Philip Jennings, general secretary of UNI, a global union federation, said that union members from around the world are ready to help America’s workers realize the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively through the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. UNI is strongly supportive of restoring bargaining rights to America’s workers. 

We’re serious about this. We want to be active and we want to get this thing done, to do something real—something concrete and visible that will help you win.

Majority sign-up is the routine method for forming unions in Australia, Japan, Norway, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel and nearly every other industrialized democracy in the world. At yesterday’s meeting, union leaders engaged in a broad discussion about what strategies are needed to make sure U.S. workers get to exercise these same freedoms.

Mary Beth Maxwell of American Rights at Work gave the assembled union leaders and activists an explanation of the problems facing workers trying to form unions in the United States and how the Employee Free Choice Act will help. She noted that in nearly every nation represented at the meeting, employees have the right to decide how to form a union, not bosses.

While the failures of current U.S. labor law have been evident for a long time, Maxwell says, the opportunity to do something about it is new. Now, with a worker-friendly Congress and president ready to listen to an energized and unified union movement on this issue, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other corporate lobbies and front groups are spending millions on disinformation campaigns. 

We can win this, and our opposition knows it. They will do anything to hold back change, to keep the status quo.

This is not just an issue for the U.S. labor movement, it’s an issue for all of us who care about economic justice, all of us who care about democracy. This will change the dynamic for all workers.

Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.) was on hand to explain the fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress. Hare, who served as a shop steward of UNITE HERE Local 617, said that advocates of worker freedom to form unions need to be united and strongly motivated to make sure the bill passes this year. He said that giving more workers the opportunity to bargain would strengthen all workers. 

This is an easy choice if you believe the simple rights of ordinary people to be paramount. This bill is about fairness. Who wins? Not just the people who are organized, but the people who aren’t.

Hare noted that sick leave, health insurance, pensions and overtime—valued by everyone in the workforce—didn’t come about on their own but were the result of bargaining by workers. The Employee Free Choice Act, he said, would reverse the tide of inequality and give working people more power in the workplace and in national politics.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Communications Workers President Larry Cohen, Machinists President Thomas Buffenbarger, AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Bill Lucy and United Food and Commercial Workers Joe Hansen were among union leaders at the meeting.

Global union leaders will meet in Brussels, Belgium, in February to develop actions and to support the Employee Free Choice Act, and the effort to support the Employee Free Choice Act will be on the agenda. As the fight in Congress approaches, America’s workers will need all the support they can get.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (2)